


If You'll Grant Me Some Forgetfulness

by thereweregiants



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (to an extent), BDSM, Blackwatch Era, Bondage, Choking, Edging, Impact Play, M/M, Mission Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 10:31:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16116575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thereweregiants/pseuds/thereweregiants
Summary: Gabe has been having a few issues - namely that he keeps fading out at the edges into mysterious black smoke.Sometimes unusual problems have unusual solutions.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i swear by all that is holy i will find Jeff Kaplan and Michael Chu and squeeze them together until a fucking notated timeline is shat out of their remains
> 
> (jk pls don't sue me i have student loans)
> 
> i knew there were holes but didn't realize the extent until i tried to write something covering a decent amount of time, and now i'm probably never going to do so again thanks to the hairpulling it caused. god damn dudes, get it together
> 
> anyways
> 
> someday I will write the filthy bdsm fic that exists in my heart but today is not that day because i got plot and feelings and shit all over it whoops
> 
> title from Warren Zevon's [Hostage-O](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awOwXexBYEU). the title changed like three times but all from that song, cause it's the sweetest song about submission ever  
> soundtrack to writing was mostly Massive Attack's Mezzanine bc i dare you to find a sexier album

“It’s getting worse.”

“Indeed.” A hand moved over his skin. It didn’t touch him, but he could _feel_ it. His eyes were closed but he could track exactly where those long nails were moving, inches above his skin.

Gabe opened his eyes, took a deep breath. More tendrils of smoke twined up, dissipating smoothly into thin air. Moira twirled a finger in the air above his arm, causing a small tornado of black to follow.

“Stop that.” He could feel the blackness stroking over individual hairs and flesh, even though he had watched closely and not a hair was ever disturbed out of place. Like a finely textured wind that he could feel but didn’t exist.

Moira was poking at a screen with a long fingered hand. “When did the most recent episode start?”

“I started feeling off a bit during my meeting at ten with Jack, but nothing physical was happening. I felt it coming on about three hours ago, when I was doing training with Genji, Rand, McCree, and Day. I was sparring with Genji, and could tell that it was starting to happen under my clothing. I got out of there, and it started showing on my face and hands about half an hour later.”

“So around six hours from initial feeling to physical symptoms, and a further half hour from starting to full manifestation.” Moira typed the information into an ever-growing set of charts as she murmured to herself. Louder: “Have there been any further incidents since you last checked in with me a month ago?”

“No. Though I guess it could happen when I’m sleeping. I feel like I’d wake up, though. Maybe.”

“Maybes do not help us.” Moira shot him a look, taking in the bruised-dark flesh under his eyes. “Not to mention I doubt you sleep long enough for it to manifest and disappear.” She flipped the screen to a different chart. “The incidents are starting to get closer together. The time before was five weeks, before that nearly six. Before too much longer they are going to get quite close.”

“You were hired for a reason, Dr. O'Deorain. What, if any, results can you show me from your research?” Gabe had slipped into his Commander Reyes role, something made difficult but not impossible by being shirtless and covered with sensors.

“I am...not getting the results that I want.” Moira sounded frustrated, a rare thing for the always-confident geneticist. “If I could get a hand on the original SEP research…”

Gabe was already shaking his head. “I have made inquiries, both official and unofficial. Everyone denies it exists, and they may or may not be telling the truth as they’re aware of it. All you have is what’s in my blood.”

“And Morrison’s.”

“If you want his samples, go get them. I’m not doing it for you.”

“How much do you care about what’s happening to you, Gabriel?” Her voice held the seduction of betrayal, a betrayal that Gabe might have to act on if he continued to degrade. Jack seemed to be all right - all the SEP benefits of strength and agility and stamina, but without Gabe’s little extras.

He ignored her last comment. “They put different stuff in all of us, and he seems fine. It won’t help.”

“You don’t know that it won’t help. And if we know what it looks like when things go right, then we can compare it to when things went wrong.” Wrong like him. Gabe shut his eyes briefly, knowing that Moira was right, that he would be going to Jack sooner or later.

“Let’s leave that for another time. Keep doing what you’re doing, keep looking for solutions.” Gabe started to peel the sensors off, one by one.

Moira crossed her spidery arms and leaned against the wall behind her, odd eyes thoughtful. “This time. It started when you were meeting with Jack. What were you meeting about?”

Gabe chose his words carefully. “We were going over a dossier by Gérard, detailing information about a person of interest.” Antonio was becoming more and more of a problem. Gabe was planning for him and McCree to visit Gérard in person at some point, go over what might be done about the situation.

“So not something particularly pleasant. And later, when the physical symptoms manifested, you were sparring with Genji?”

“Yeah. Angela’s been recalibrating some things with him, we figured it’d be safest if I worked with him for the time being. Hardest to kill and all of that.” Gabe couldn’t help but worrying every time Genji’s mechanics were messed with. Next time it could accidentally alter his circulatory system, or worse.

Moira unfolded an arm to touch the screen in front of her. “If memory serves, the last incident was after a mission in Numbani.” Gabe’s face went blank. Sollys and Ames died during that mission. Gabe was lucky he was in his quarters when the smoke started, he hadn’t even noticed feeling off beforehand because, well, everything was off. They didn’t lose agents that often, and to lose two young ones at the same time was hard on everyone.

“And previous to that. Overwatch was at a ceremony at the United Nations headquarters, while you were out on a mission in Antarctica, yes?” Gabe had come home to a box on his desk, full of medals that Blackwatch was given but could never be pinned on in public. He’d dipped a hand in and let them run through his frostbitten fingers, allowing himself to hate Overwatch for two minutes before distributing them to his team members with already-healing hands.

Moira’s arms folded back up. “It occurs to me that genetics aside, there may be a mental component. We can keep going back through incidents, but it appears that each one is connected to a time of heightened emotion. Negative emotions, specifically.”

“I don’t believe that anyone who has ever known me would call me overly emotional, Moira.”

“I am not talking about displaying emotion, Gabriel. You have impeccable control over your face and body, current ...issues aside. I am talking about what is under the surface. You may have the most neutral expression possible but it does not change the turmoil your mind may be going through.”

Gabe sat, face ironically impassive with smoke swirling around him. “I kill people and send my agents out to kill people or get killed themselves every day. My life is comprised primarily of negative emotions.”

“Then why do you do it?” Moira sounded honestly curious.

“Because I’m good at it. Because someone has to. Because I can handle it.” If it wasn’t him, it would be someone else. And there were all of two people in the world with his particular flavor of capabilities, and the other one was running Overwatch.

“It is the ‘handling it’ that I am not sure about.” Moira sighed. “If I thought it would help or that you would do it, I would recommend a therapist. You need to learn to deal with your emotions in a healthy way, not just internalize or compartmentalize. If I were you, I might talk with Genji.”

“Why him?”

“He meditates. You could speak with him or even Dr Ziegler about it - I know that aside from possible religious significance, it helped him a great deal in managing the physical and emotional trauma of what his body went through.”

It wasn’t a bad idea. “I’ll consider it. If there isn’t anything else?”

“No. I might take some time before attempting to go anywhere, though. You are still fairly...active.”

Gabe looked down at himself. The tendrils were fewer and smaller, but still there. He pulled off the last of the sensors, and went over to a bunk inset into the wall for patients who didn’t need a gurney but needed rest. He lay down, body still but mind working. As much as he hated to admit it, Moira might be right. Most of the times that he could recall the smoke becoming active, he was upset and angry. And not just that, but upset and angry and trying to hide it. It was like the negativity decided to emerge from him, however it could.

He took a deep breath and consciously relaxed his muscles set by set, toes to forehead. He tried to let his brain blank - not thinking about what the ramifications of what he’d learned today might be, not thinking about the mission tomorrow, not thinking about his agents that were due back later that night. It didn’t work, not really, but he managed to at least feel more relaxed in body if not mind.

Gabe opened his eyes and looked down. Just his normal self. Finally. It had been hours. He sat up and took a moment to pull his sweatshirt on before swinging his legs over and standing up. Pulling his hood up he left Moira’s lab, walking with the kind of stride and expression that said he had places to be so no one should bother him. No one did.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Mission report from Genji, mission report from McCree, mission report from Patrick, mission report from Mei-Ling Zhou. Wait, who was that last one? Gabe selected the message, reading through quickly. Oh, that’s right. She was the climatologist from when they were in Antarctica four months back, and she was sending an update on...something. Gabe marked the message as unread, something he could deal with tomorrow. It was late and his bed was calling him.

“Boss.” Gabe looked up to see McCree standing in the doorway, one hand hooked on an angled hip, the other shoved in a pocket.

“McCree. What can I do for you?”

“Just wanted to remind you that as of tomorrow I’m off for two weeks.” That was right. McCree had put in for vacation time quite a while ago, Gabe hadn’t realized that the date had come already. McCree had been with Blackwatch so long that he had accrued an enormous amount of time off, but he rarely took it. He could probably take two months off and the system wouldn’t notice.

“Damn. I’d forgotten. Was planning to have you on a mission in a bit, too.” Gabe combed his fingers through his beard, thinking. He might have to do it himself, unfortunately. It wasn’t something he was looking forward to.

“Going anywhere in specific?” Gabe asked in idle curiosity, hand returning to his desk.

McCree shrugged, broad shoulders straining the buttons of his shirt at the movement. Gabe carefully didn’t pay attention to it. “Here and there. There’re a couple of places I’ve still gotta avoid, but I’ll probably go over to America and visit a few old haunts.”

“Just let Athena know what state you’re in, at least, in case of emergencies.”

“Will do, boss. I’ll make sure to bring you back some tacky souvenirs.” He gave a sloppy salute before pushing himself off of the doorframe. “See you later, Reyes.”

“See you,” Gabe echoed. He felt a warning prickle between his shoulderblades. It had been nearly six weeks since his last episode - the longest delay he’d seen in the better part of a year. He had been carefully trying to keep calm, both inside and out, and maybe it was working. He would need to watch himself over the next few days, though, without McCree.

If you had told Gabriel Reyes a dozen years ago that the half-starved teenage gang member they had brought in would end up his right hand man in Blackwatch, he would have laughed himself sick then referred you to Angela for an evaluation. He’d brought the kid in on a whim, something in the set of his jaw and how he shot his gun that said given time he could - might -  become an asset. Gabe had given him an ultimatum - unsurprised when the kid took it, but very surprised when he lasted and excelled.

Gabe didn’t have anything to do with trainees, that was a separate department that he was happy to have Dianda deal with. When she came to him a few years later and said she had someone that he should consider for his strike team, he was taken aback to see it was McCree. He’d joined his team seamlessly, becoming annoyingly indispensable in a short amount of time. He was Gabe’s second in command, and Gabe didn’t know what he’d do without him. It was because of this that he purposefully ignored how attractively he’d grown up, both physically and mentally. It would never be an option, so Gabe compartmentalized like he did with everything else and shoved those feelings into a tiny box at the very back of his mind.

Turning to his schedule, Gabe flicked through screens and sighed. They were so close to finally getting a hold of a man high up in Talon’s organizational chart. The only name they had was ‘Bucer’, and whether that was a first or last name was anyone’s guess. They knew what he looked like, but not his home base. The only place they could definitely put him in was a standing visit to a particular fetish club in San Francisco on the second weekend of every month. They had to be so delicate about this - they didn’t want the man to know they were there, but they needed to get a tracker on him. McCree was great at this kind of thing - he was the backslapping, hugging type, and charming enough to get away with it with people who would normally be skittish.

This would be their last time to try this for possibly two months - the second weekend of the next month was a big omnic-human unification gala in Luxembourg that they were positive Talon and Bucer would be hitting. Bucer was known for his hatred of omnics, especially when they allied with humans. That was why they needed the tracker in the first place, to try and figure out their plans for the gala before they could get into motion.

Gabe went through Blackwatch members one by one, trying to see who he could pull. There was a big mission that Genji was heading up over in South Africa at the same time, and he couldn’t spare anyone from there. This person would be out on medical leave for another two weeks, that person had been borrowed by Overwatch for a mission...the list went on. Gabe stared at the final name and sighed. Moira. He tried not to send her into the field more than absolutely necessary, her talents far more useful on base. Not to mention she was unknown to be on his team by nearly all of Overwatch, her previous work not having endeared her to them. He needed to have a second person, though, and her medical abilities would come in handy if anything went south. Including him.

He didn’t trust Moira as far as he could throw her, so he would execute the op himself, using her as handler. It would be a cinch - just him, a morally ambiguous geneticist, and a bunch of people that enjoyed causing pain as a recreational activity. What could go wrong?

-x-x-x-x-x-

“I don’t like this, Gabriel.”

“Neither do I, but I have no other agents left and this is our one chance to tag Bucer before the gala.”

“I don’t trust her. And I still don’t approve of you bringing her into your organization.”

“It’s the whole point of Blackwatch, Ana. We take the people that you’re too good for. Would you have taken Genji? Jesse? No. And look at them now. I don’t trust her much either, but I’m out of options. Unless you want to come and be my handler.”

She sighed, corner of her left eye twitching in a way that said she was even unhappier than she was letting on. “I just have...distinct reservations about what she believes is morally acceptable. It’s controllable when she’s here, in her lab, working with what you give her, but outside…” She trailed off. “I want you checking in with me, Gabriel.”

“You’re not my mother, Ana, nor do you outrank me.”

“I am aware. I do however care about you, so please. As a friend. Let me know when the op is, I’ll clear my schedule and be on a private channel.”

Gabe drummed his fingers on his desk. “Fine. I’ll let you know exact times.”

Ana stood, stepping to the side of the desk to lean down and wrap narrow arms around Gabe’s shoulders. She was thin, but made of whipcord and jerky over steel bones. No one should ever underestimate Ana Amari. She pressed a kiss to the curls on the top of his head. “I need you to take care of yourself, Gabriel. Jack and I won’t survive without you.”

He relaxed, letting his head lean back into her shoulder for just a moment. “I know, Ana. Same here.”

-x-x-x-x-x-

“You are not wearing...that, are you?”

Gabe looked down at himself, then back at Moira on the screen in front of him. “What?” He was in all black. Good enough.

“Gabriel, you wouldn’t put up with one of your agents being inappropriately attired for a mission, so I am not sure why you’re okay with it for yourself.”

“I’m fine! I’ve been to clubs like this before - I need to not stand out.”

“And you will stand out there, for the wrong reasons. Have you done any research? This place possesses more class than the previous…establishments you went to apparently did.”

“Fine. What do I need to change,” he said sullenly. She was right - he’d been so busy in getting resources for Genji that he’d had almost no time to prepare himself. McCree did so much for him, and it was apparent to everyone that Gabe was stressed picking up the slack.

“Tighter pants. Your black leather boots, the knee-high ones, and do shine them up first. Do you still have that leather duster from last Halloween? That. Over one of your uniform undershirts.”

Gabe grumbled, but dutifully pulled the clothing out of his closet. He turned back to Moira. “Okay. So when we’re in the van -”

“Put it on, Gabriel.”

“I’m not your toy, Moira. And we have things to do.”

“Talk while you get dressed.”

“Fine. Switching to audio.”

“Oh, Gabriel. Such tender sensibilities. I hope you’ll be able to deal with what you see in there.”

“I will be fine, Moira. I just don’t feel like giving you a show. Now. You’ll be in the van, audio surveillance only so their scanners won’t catch it. They’re not an omnic-friendly club, so their security is tighter than normal. I am going to get in, plant the tracker, and get out. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to see the vehicle he arrives in. If you or I could get a tracker on that as well it would be a bonus. We’ll leave when he does, follow until he shows us something useful.”

“Sounds straightforward. It also sounds like there are multiple places it can go wrong.”

“Welcome to the world of field work, Moira. It’s why we try to be prepared for every eventuality.”

Gabe tabbed the screen back to video. Moira looked at him with an assessing eye. “It will do. Not my taste, but it should appeal to that lot. We’ll shine you up a bit more before you go.”

Suppressing an internal shudder at what _might_ be to Moira’s taste, he replied with an edge of sarcasm. “I’m glad I meet with your approval, Doctor. It’s so important to me. If that’s all, you should get some sleep. We head out at 0700, we’re dropping Patrick off in New York before continuing to San Francisco. Surveillance the rest of the day, execute the op that evening. Hopefully we’ll be back before the weekend is over.”

Moira leaned forward, a more serious look on her face. “And Gabriel. How are you feeling. Any incidents I should know about? It’s been awhile since the last one.”

“It has. I think you might have been on to something, with the emotional factor. I’ve been making efforts to stay calm, and it’s been...fine. I got a little prickle a few days ago, but it died away quickly and nothing came of it.”

“What was happening, then?”

Gabe shifted in his seat. He knew Moira needed to know, but he felt uncomfortable with her being aware how much he needed McCree. “McCree let me know he was going on vacation, and I realized how much work I would have to pick up. Like this op, for example.”

“Hmm.” Moira looked speculative. “It died down, though.”

Gabe shrugged. “I went through my schedule and figured out a fix. Maybe it was the reassurance at that.”

“Hmm. Perhaps.” Moira sat back, unsatisfied but knowing she wouldn’t get anywhere further. “I will see you tomorrow, Gabriel.”

“0700. Don’t be late.” She wouldn’t be, they both knew it.

He tapped to end the call, then waved a hand to shut the screen down. He should get some sleep, it would be a long day tomorrow.

-x-x-x-x-x-

“Do we have any idea what vehicle he’ll be driving?”

“No. We’ve seen him in a variety of cars that all appeared to be rentals or Talon-owned.”

The sound of shifting in the seat across from him. “I don’t understand why you are using those binoculars. We have full 360 degree video and facial recognition, I don’t see how your eyes will do any better than the technology.”

“This is why we don’t let you out of the lab, Moira. Eyes are always better than tech. I’ve watched enough clips of him to know his body language, and our recognition tech isn’t at that point yet. What if he comes in with a hood up, or wearing a mask?”

“Hmph.” Her disdain was palpable.

Gabe lowered the binoculars and settled back in his seat, cracking his neck. He was sweating, despite having taken his coat off. Between the tall boots, the pants, and the weather, it was too warm for his ensemble. He leaned over to check the screen that was covering the back of the club. Previous intel showed him going right in the front, but it paid to be cautious.

“Are you feeling all right? You have too much color in your cheeks,” Moira was looking at him with an assessing look, not that she usually had another expression on her face.

“I’m hot, Moira. I am wearing ridiculous clothing, I’ve been trapped in a van all day,” he distinctly didn’t say _with you_ but the sentiment came across, “I am feeling unprepared, and I just want to get this over with.”

Moira’s gaze went past him, out the window. “You may have your chance,” she murmured. “Is that not him?”

Gabe twisted at the waist. There he was, walking across the street - a short man with harsh, blocky features. He had on an outfit similar to Gabe’s, though the coat was a dark blood red instead of black. Gabe watched as he handed the keys to a suited man, who got into the driver’s seat and drove away as Bucer opened the door to the club.

Cursing under his breath, Gabe grabbed his coat. “Well, that shoots it for getting a tracker on his car. See if the video caught the tag, maybe you can figure out where it’s from.”

Shrugging into the coat Gabe made for the door, but Moira pushed him back into his seat, surprising strength in her limbs. “You are not going out like that.”

He gave her an incredulous look. “He is in the club, Moira. I need to get in there. Now.”

“And you look like you just ran a marathon. Take a moment to get presentable.” She handed him a cloth, and he wiped his sweaty face off. When he emerged, Moira was coming at him with some sort of small white papers. She batted his hands away when he tried to push them off.

“Blotting sheets, so you aren’t quite so...shiny.” She dabbed at his face, muttering _Men_ under her breath. Gabe closed his eyes and let her get on with it. He would be fine if it was Ana or McCree or Day or any of his other team members doing this, he could tell that he was feeling stubborn and resentful just because it was Moira.

“Keep your eyes closed,” Moira instructed, and before he could say anything he felt something on his eyes. He kept very still, not trusting her long nails.

“Open.” Gabe opened his eyes and blinked. “Look up.” He did so, seeing Moira just at the edge of his peripheral vision stroke something a few times across the bottom of his lash lines. She pulled back, eyeing him over. “At least now you’ll fit in. If you mess this up it will be your fault.”

Gabe rolled his eyes. “Thank you, for the vote of confidence.” He grabbed his com, setting it to both channel 1 and channel 3. “I’ll be on channel three. Radio silence unless it’s a necessity.” He pulled out his tablet and sent a quick message to Ana, telling her his com number and that he’d be on channel 1.

“Good luck.” Moira sounded almost sincere.

Gabe got out of the van, taking a deep breath of the evening air. The streetlight reflected off the van, and he took a moment to look at his reflection, running a hand through to get his hair into some semblance of order. It appeared that Moira had put some kind of liner on his eyes. He didn’t much care, at least it might hide the dark circles.

He walked through the door of the King of Clubs, taking a moment to roll his eyes at the name. Letting himself be subjected to the subpar patdown by security - they didn’t find the knives in his boots, let alone the garotte in his breast pocket - he made his way inside, pausing in the hallway to let his eyes adjust. Once in the main room he stood to the side, casting quick eyes around the place. They had a few pictures from some recon Rand had done on his way to another mission a week ago, but they weren’t great quality.

It was surprisingly homey for a BDSM club, but Gabe knew that this area was something of a front. The walls were a warm dark wood, kept from being gloomy by golden and the occasional red lights. There were comfortable looking armchairs and couches that begged to be sunk down into. The only real concession to it not being an ordinary bar were the various people draped over every surface in leather, metal, and straps.

Gabe first looked for blood red, and saw nothing of that particular shade, He then looked for short men, keeping Bucer’s body language in mind, and still saw nothing. Damnit. He might be in what the club was known for - the play rooms, referred to blandly as ‘studios’. There were nearly twenty of them, of various themes. Gabe would definitely not be able to get into them unnoticed: there were strict rules about privacy and confidentiality that made the place appealing to a certain type of customer. Gabe turned to make his way toward the bar, and narrowed his eyes. Hanging in the coat room was a blood red trench coat. Well, Bucer was definitely here, and his coat...he eyed the coat room attendant for a minute, and she smiled at him with an edge that said she wouldn’t be easily charmed. Hmm. Something to keep in mind.

Tilting his head in a particular way, he activated his com with a click. “Target is here, but appears to have gone into one of the back rooms.”

“Can you get in easily?”

“No. His coat is hanging in the coat room, but guarded. Might be a possibility. Going to get comfortable for recon.”

“Let me know if you need anything, including backup.”

Gabe clicked off, as he came up to the bar. Giving the bartender a crooked smile, he asked hopefully, “I’m guessing you don’t have any alcohol back there.”

She shook her head wryly. “Drinking and playing doesn’t mix, as I’m sure you know.”

He shrugged. “Can’t blame a guy for trying. Give me your strongest juice, then.”

The bartender smiled, and mixed together a few things before plopping a cherry in and passing the glass to Gabe. “My most potent Shirley Temple.”

“Are you casting aspersions on my masculinity, now?” he smirked around the straw.

“Never,” she said, giving him an appreciative once over. “I doubt much could do that.”

Gabe reached a hand over. “Gabriel. Pleasure.”

She shook it, accidentally getting some lime juice on him from the sidework she was doing. “Whoops, sorry there. Eira.”

Gabe licked the smear off of his wrist, ignoring but fully aware of the deep breath that Eira took. He raised his eyes and looked over her features, beautiful and darker than his own. “Eira, eh? You look about as much of a ‘snow’ as I do. Ironic choice, or your actual name?”

Eira smiled in amusement. “My mother grew up in Cardiff. thought it would be funny. You know Welsh?”

Shrugging, Gabe sipped the pink concoction. “I have a lot of international coworkers. You pick up a little bit of everything.”

Continuing to cut up limes, Eira cocked a head in curiosity. “I haven’t seen you around before, what brings you to us? Have a session scheduled?”

“No, no. I was actually hoping to meet a friend here, he’s usually around this time. Wears a long red leather trench, don’t know what name he gives here but I know him as Bucer.”

Eira rolled her eyes, cutting up the last lime with vehemence. “No offense, Gabriel, but I’m not a big fan of your friend.”

“Please know that I use the word ‘friend’ very loosely.”

“Good. He’s rude, crude, and they’ve nearly kicked him out a few times. You can get up to whatever you want in the studios with whoever you bring, but you don’t get sexual with staff. They do scenes, but there are clearly defined limits in the contracts. He has problems remembering that.”

“That goes with what I know of him.”

“You just missed him, actually. Went into the back maybe twenty minutes ago with Annis and another ‘friend’ of his. Knowing him, he won’t be out ‘til morning.”

Gabe’s eyes widened. “Seriously? He stays all night?”

“Usually. We have a few rooms set aside for that.”

“Hell,” Gabe muttered under his breath. This was supposed to be in and out in ten minutes, and it was turning into a downright shitshow. He felt a prickle down his spine, and took a deep breath, hoping it was sweat or nerves. He could _not_ start smoking out here, not now.

He was just calming down when he heard something that made him freeze. A laugh, one that he knew better than nearly any other. His eyes scanned back and forth rapidly, until they locked onto a figure at the other end of the bar. His back was to Gabe, his hair was pulled back into a short tail, he was talking to the other bartender, but that was definitely him.

“Pardon me, I see someone I need to talk to,” said Gabe, giving Eira a pained smile before setting his glass down carefully and stalking down the bar.

What the hell. Did Ana do this? He bet that she did. Thinking that Gabe couldn’t handle this with Moira, couldn’t deal with babysitting his scientist...how dare she. And taking him off of vacation? And he agreed to it! Damn them all.

He reached out and spun McCree around with a hand on his shoulder. Wide eyes met his angry ones in shock, as he grabbed McCree’s wrist in an iron grip before he could make the defensive move that he was telegraphing. “What are you doing here? Ana put you up to it, right? Are you in contact with her right now?”

Mouth open, McCree gaped like a landed fish. The bartender he was talking to asked in a growling voice, “Jesse? Everything okay?”

Gabe realized that every danger sense he had was going off, and glanced around without moving his head to see three security people as well as the bartender all facing him with unpleasant looks on their faces.

McCree gave a forced laugh, and directed a smile that didn’t reach his eyes over at the bartender. “We’re fine, Danny. Just a bit of a misunderstanding.”

“Hmph.” The large man looked unconvinced, but also like he wasn’t going to leap over the bar, now. “Remember that there’s no play in the lounge. You know better, Jesse.”

Gabe realized he was still holding onto McCree’s wrist tight enough to turn the surrounding skin white, and let it go. McCree grabbed Gabe’s arm instead, and yanked him over to a table set into an alcove at the side of the room, waving off the various security people off as they went.

“What do you mean, what am I doing here? I’m on fucking vacation, Reyes. What are _you_ doing here?” he hissed into Gabe’s ear as soon as they were far enough away from prying ears.

It was Gabe’s turn to blink in confusion. “You didn’t get pulled here for the mission? By Ana?”

“What mission? Ana? No.” Gabe took a moment to gather his thoughts, and used the time to look McCree over. He was wearing nothing that Gabe recognized other than the ubiquitous belt buckle, though it was similar to his own look minus the coat. Black boots, snug black pants, tight black shirt that covered him but left nothing about his musculature to the imagination. A bracelet or gauntlet type of thing on his left wrist, a series of straps and buckles that appeared decorative but Gabe realized effectively disguised his Deadlock tattoo.

“This is that mission I was going to have you do, before you said you were going on vacation. There’s a Talon-connected guy named Bucer that comes here every month, we wanted to get a tracker on him because he’s likely going to be part of an attack at the gala in Luxembourg next month. Literally everyone is either in South Africa or scattered around, so this is just me and Moira as handler.” He paused at McCree’s snort at the scientist’s attendance. “That explains me. Now explain you.”

McCree looked at him steadily. “I told you, I’m on vacation.”

Gabe gestured vaguely to the club. “But... _here_?”

“I don’t ask you about your personal life, Reyes.” Sighing at the look Gabe gave him, he elaborated. “I’ve been a regular here for some years now, off and on.”

“I...didn’t know.” Gabe had no idea how he was supposed to react to the facts that McCree was into BDSM, that he had no idea about it, and that he’d managed to be a regular anywhere, given their schedule.

“No one does. Well, except Genji.”

Gabe raised an eyebrow.

“Our very first mission together, before I was even on your team. We ended up in the Castro. Genji...well. You heard what he was like when he was younger.” Gabe did. The tales of the youngest Shimada were quite something to hear, and he didn’t doubt that there was far more that wasn’t public. “He figured out I was interested, introduced me to the lifestyle. It’s not something I indulge in often, but when I get a free weekend,” he shrugged.

Gabe ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. this...damnit. The whole mission has been a fuckup from start to finish, may as well throw this in.”

“What went wrong?”

Gabe glanced around, then quickly ran him through the past forty minutes in a low voice. “So now this guy is in some room in the back, the car is gone, his coat is sitting there but I can’t get to it, and...well, you’re here.” He winced, at a sound in his ear. “And now someone is yelling at me.”

McCree held out a hand. “Answer your com, and give me a tracker. Let me see what I can do.” Gabe pulled a small perforated sheet out of his pocket, and tore off a square with a small silver dot affixed to it and handed it to McCree.

“Have at it.” He watched McCree walk towards the coat room as he tilted his head. It was Moira. “Everything all right?”

“I just wanted to check in, Gabriel. Have you made contact, yet?”

“No, and it gets worse. It looks like the guy may have booked a room for the night. I’m working on it.”

A sigh. “Keep me updated.”

“Will do.”

He didn’t know why he didn’t mention McCree to her, but he knew it wouldn’t be a good idea. He heard a higher pitched click, and sighed, knowing who it was.

“Ana.”

“How are you? How’s Moira?”

“She’s fine, still in the van. We’ve run into some...setbacks, but nothing dangerous yet.”

“All right. I can see if I can pull someone off something if you need, it looks like Patrick’s going to wrap up soon and he’s on the same continent…”

“No, I - I actually have some backup. Sort of. McCree is here.”

A long pause. “Really.”

“Yeah. It’s...an odd situation. He’s here on vacation, and I nearly jumped down his throat thinking you sent him. He’s actually helping now, trying to get a tracker on the guy’s coat.” McCree was leaning against the coat check counter, the woman staffing it laughing and putting a hand on his arm. Damnit, this was why he wanted McCree for the mission in the first place.

“...all right then. Just be careful, Gabriel. Not just with the mission.”

Gabe had never mentioned his inappropriate feelings about McCree to Ana, nor had she said anything to him, but she was uncomfortably perceptive at the worst of times.

“I will. Reyes out.”

It was weird, to be sitting alone at the table doing nothing while McCree was across the room. He needed something to do with his hands. He went back to the bar, back to Eira.

“Another Shirley Temple, please.”

“You look like you need it. I’ll even throw in an extra cherry.” She smiled at him, though not with quite the same enthusiasm as before. “So you know Jesse?”

“Yeah. He’s a friend - an actual one, not like with Bucer,” he said with the corner of his mouth twitching upwards as he accepted the drink.

“He’s a good guy, always great with his subs.” Gabe took a sip of his drink, and danced around her comment in his brain. He was fine intellectually knowing that McCree came here, but it was another to think about what he actually did here. If he had subs, that meant that he was a dominant, right? McCree had been Gabe’s subordinate - he nearly choked on his drink at realizing the phrasing, there - for so long that it was a bit hard to reconcile him with being in charge of people like that. Well, perhaps not. He did have McCree do various trainings with the new recruits to teams, and Dianda often had him work with trainees. He was good at teaching, oddly enough.

A hand on his shoulder, and Gabe turned his head to see McCree just inches away. He leaned forward a bit more, to whisper in Gabe’s ear. “The tracker is on the coat. You’re welcome.” Gabe leaned back a bit to look him in the eye, and smiled fondly before he could stop himself.

“Thank you. Really. This might not end up a bust after all.”

He turned to Eira, who was watching them with an almost wistful expression on her face. He tossed a couple of bills down, shooting her a smile as McCree tugged him back to the table by the arm. He made sure to take his drink with him this time.

“It’s on the inside hem at the bottom, he shouldn’t see it easily.”

“Excellent.” Gabe felt his shoulders relax. He shifted a bit, his coat was itchy. “He might ditch the coat, but at least we might have him for a bit. I don’t, ah, mean to take you away from your vacation, McCree. You’ve done more than enough, you can go back to…” he realized he had no idea how to end the sentence, “...whatever you were doing.”

McCree raised his shoulders momentarily. “It’s a slow night for me. Didn’t have anything else to do.” He watched in curiosity as Gabe shifted again, resettling his coat. “Are you okay, there?”

“Yeah, must be allergic to something in this,” Gabe said with annoyance, before stilling. Maybe...maybe it wasn’t the coat. He took a breath and took stock of his body. The worst of it was in his shoulders, but there. There was light prickling along his torso, slowly moving downwards. It was like television static, but under his skin. Shit. He was going to lose control of himself before too long. Last time it was...what, six hours from first feeling to manifestation? He was at home then, not in a random club in California with his mission going to shit and McCree being...McCree.

This was bad. This was very bad.

“You don’t look okay.” McCree was now looking at him in concern.

“I’m...fine. Just stressed.” Gabe shook his shoulders out, the static under his skin retreating for a moment before roaring back, unable to be ignored now. “Could you do me a very big favor?”

McCree looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Depends.”

“It seems like you’re pretty well-known, well-liked here. Is there any way you could find out what room Bucer ended up in? If nothing else maybe I could get the room next door, try and get a scope or something in.” They had a couple in the van, he could sneak out and grab one.

With a shrug, McCree stood. “I can try. No guarantees.” He was gone for just a moment before he returned with a glass of water. “Drink this. Please.” Gabe took the glass, had to take a sip from it before McCree would leave.

He took deep breaths. He should contact Moira. He should contact Ana. He’d have to explain to Ana, though, and that was something he didn’t want to do over a com. Calm, calm, calm. This was happening because he was riled up. Negative emotion. What were the sources? The op. It was going badly, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. He might have to stay here overnight himself, but it wouldn’t kill him, it’d be more boredom than anything. Moira. She was doing fine, despite his misgivings, not that there had been much for her to screw up yet. McCree…

McCree was standing in front of him. “He’s in the medical room, which is something I really don’t want to think about and - hell.” Gabe’s trembling hand dropped the glass, and McCree caught it just before it hit the table. He was now close, too close to Gabe, and he was staring at Gabe’s hand.

“Boss…” Small tendrils of smoke were wisping up from his knuckles.

Shit.


	2. Chapter 2

“I need to go. I can’t be in public.” Gabe lurched to his feet. It had never been this bad before, but it had also never come on this quickly before. McCree caught him before he could fall.

“You need to talk to me, Reyes. What’s happening?” McCree said in his ear, drawing back just a little at the smoke coming from under his collar. 

“It’s...it’s just going to get worse. I can’t be seen by civilians.”

“Just stay here, for one minute. You’ll be okay?” McCree bent down to look into Gabe’s eyes, and nodded at the expression in them. He disappeared for a bit, then came back, pulling Gabe up with an arm around his waist. “Come on, I’ve got you.”

They went into the hallway that Gabe knew led to the various play rooms. McCree walked down quickly, like he knew where he was going. Pulling a key from a pocket he opened a door and turned on the lights. It looked like a bedroom, a hotel room actually. McCree set Gabe down on the bed and manhandled him out of the coat, crouching on the floor in front of him.

“What...is this, Reyes?” He turned Gabe’s arm over, looking at the tendrils of smoke coming up. He brushed a his hand a scant inch above the surface, from wrist to shoulder. Gabe shuddered.

“Don’t - don’t do that.”

“Can you feel it?”

“Yeah.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Not...exactly. Feels weird.” He took a breath, then another. Apparently he was going to explain this to McCree.

“It’s some type of strange side effect from SEP. We’re not sure what, but...something’s wrong. Moira has been helping, it’s partly the reason that I wanted her on the team at all. It’s something genetic, but genetics fucked by whatever the government did to us. She thinks it’s my cells, they’re dying and rebuilding so fast that they do...this.” 

“How long has it been going on? Because I’ve known you for a long damn time and can’t ever remember this happening.”

“A year or so. Incidents have been happening every month or two. We’ve been trying to figure it out, figure out why. I’ve been lucky that so far it’s always been back at HQ, somewhere controllable. I guess it had to happen on a mission sometime.”

McCree sat back on his heels, thoughtful look on his face. “Is that what happened about a month and a half back during training, when you said you felt sick? You’re never sick.”

Damn McCree and his sharp mind. “Yeah. That was the last incident before this. I thought I was getting better at handling it, this was one of the longest stretches yet without one.”

“So it just...happens?”

“Eh. I get some lead time. A feeling. That something is wrong, something’s off. Then I get tingling, like a brillo pad on the inside of my skin. That builds until,” Gabe waved a smoke-trailing hand in the air, “This. It’s not normally this fast, though. Last time it was six hours for it to go from first feeling to smoke. This time was less than an hour.”

McCree got up, moving just enough to sit next to Gabe on the bed, one leg pulled up under him. “You said you were ‘handling it’. What does that mean?”

Gabe sighed. He was smoking more now, but he wasn’t nearly as shaky, thank god. “Moira thinks that it’s connected to negative emotions. And a heightened emotional state. So I’ve tried to stay calmer, I guess, but it’s not like it’s easy in this job. Only reason it lasted this long, I think, is that there haven’t been any big missions. Until now.”

“I’m assuming she means actual emotions, not just emotional displays.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that explains you.” Gabe gave him a look. “It’s true, boss. You’ve never showed anything, to the point where it’s obvious that you keep it all under wraps. Makes me glad I’ve never had to play poker with you. But it doesn’t mean that you’re not feelin’ it. Sometimes the people with the strongest feelings are the ones that hide it the most.”

“And what makes you a psychologist all of a sudden?”

“Bein’ good at my job, to start with.” Gabe gave a reluctant nod at that. “And also,” McCree waved a hand around him. “This. It’s all emotional management.”

“I thought it was about liking pain.”

“No. Well, it can be, for a very select group of people. But no. It’s about...power, control. Giving it up or taking it. It’s all about emotion.” McCree gave him a considering glance. “Maybe you should try it.”

Gabe snickered. “What, I get the stress spanked out of me? No, thank you.”

McCree rolled his eyes. “It’s not about spanking. Unless that’s your thing, I don’t judge. It’s about...willingly giving control, giving trust, giving a modicum of power to someone else. Maybe they’re orderin’ you around, maybe they’re tying you up, maybe they’re just makin’ you relax. Maybe they’re takin’ decision-making out of your hands, so you can not be a commander for a moment.” His voice was calm, almost seductive in the options he was offering.

Leaning back on his arms and looking up at the ceiling, Gabe gave the idea some consideration. This was nothing familiar, nothing he had ever thought about before. But he was sitting here with smoke that was likely made of his own dead cells coming out of his body, so maybe he didn’t have room to be picky about options. He looked over at McCree, who was sitting patiently, hands wrapped around his ankle that was tucked under him.

“We’re not fucking.”

“It’s not about sex. It can be, certainly, and for many people that’s what it’s completely tied to. Sex and power are intertwined, after all. But I told you, it’s about control.”

“McCree, I -” Gabe paused, opened his mouth to speak, paused again. “You know what I do, how I operate. It’s a nice idea, to be able to give up control, but that’s not what I do. It can’t be. I have too many people depending on me.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course.” The response was automatic.

“Then could you let me take care of you, shoulder some of that burden for you? We do that at work all the time - I watch your back, I take on projects you don’t have the time for.” Gabe couldn’t deny that - he’d been experiencing intimately over the past week what it was like to not have McCree around to help with running Blackwatch. “This is the same thing, just...more. Like when you get a haircut and you just sit there and let the guy do what he wants for a bit. You just sit back and let someone else take the wheel.”

Gabe scratched at his beard, sneezing as smoke went up his nose. He glanced around, needing a break. “Where are we, by the way?”

“The room next to Bucer’s. It’s used for hotel room fantasies, being a businessman on vacation or whatever.”

“How long can we be in here, without anyone noticing?”

“All night if you want.”

“Please tell me you’re not paying for it yourself.”

“No, no. I’ve done my share of handlin’ clients that’re assholes over the years, and everyone here knows me. I pretty much don’t have to pay for room use as long as they don’t need it.”

“Hmph.” Gabe ran a hand through his hair, prompting a muffled laugh from McCree. “What?”

“I’m sorry, boss, it just looks real funny when you do that. Like you’re shakin’ loose handfuls of coal dust.”

“I’m glad someone is finding the situation amusing,” grumbled Gabe. “So. Bucer’s here for the night, I shouldn’t be going anywhere looking like I do, maybe we’ll try this...thing of yours.” 

McCree had an odd light in his eyes, something Gabe hadn’t seen before. “All right.”

“I need to update Moira, first, let her know what’s happening. Should I say you’re here?”

McCree thought for a moment. “Yeah, go ahead. I’m worried that if she thinks you’re alone and goin’ through this thing, she might bust in here herself.”

“True. All right, give me a few.” Gabe activated his com. “Moira. Change in plans.”

“Please tell me it’s something more interesting than sitting in a van all night,” came the lackadaisical reply.

“Not exactly.” Gabe paused for a moment as McCree tugged the coat out from under Gabe. As he talked, he watched him hang it up in the closet. “Bucer went into one of the rooms, and he’ll be there all night.”

Moira cursed quietly. “It gets better. I’m having an incident.” 

“Did anyone see you? Are you all right?” came her immediate questions.

“No to the first, yes to the second. Weak and shaky, but okay and getting better. Something you should know - it happened fast, very fast this time. Time from tingling to smoke was an hour.”

“You know, it might have started even earlier. You were looking a tad off in the van, it might have been more than the heat.”

“Maybe. Anyways, I actually have some backup with me. McCree. I told him what’s going on, he’d find out soon enough anyways.”

Quiet over the line, long enough that Gabe almost pulled the com out to check the connection. “Really. How fascinating.”

“Moira…” Gabe heard a zip and looked down to see McCree pulling off his boots. He took them and his socks over to the closet, lining them up next to his own shoes.

“I won’t say anything, though it makes our dear cowboy a far more interesting person than I have previously thought. Regardless, it’s good that someone is there with you. Keep track of any changes in your condition.”

“I will. You’re off for the night, I guess, though you should be back here at 0600, I’m not sure when Bucer will leave though I doubt it’ll be before that. Keep your eyes open for the car he arrived in.”

“Yes, commander.” He could hear the irony in her voice. “Don’t enjoy yourself too much tonight, now.” He heard her click off, dead air cutting of his reply.

“Jesus, she’s a piece of work,” he muttered to himself. 

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, we’re clear for the night. I have some ideas about possibly getting a hold of Bucer, but none of them will work for a while.” 

“Good. Come here.” McCree gestured to a straight-backed chair he had taken from the desk and set in the middle of the room. Gabe ambled over to it, taking a seat. The back dug in under his shoulderblades a bit. He expected McCree to pull another chair out, but he remained standing.

“This is not going to be a traditional, for whatever value of that there is, dominant-submissive relationship,” McCree began, hips cocked in a familiar way with his arms folded, looking the picture of relaxation. “For starters, there is our previous relationship, which is not somethin’ that I particularly enjoy having in someone I play with. We’ll both be tempted to slip into previous roles, we’ll both have to try not to.”

Gabe nodded. Made sense. This might have been more of a problem years ago, but now McCree worked far more  _ with _ him than  _ for _ him, so perhaps it might not be a thing. Perhaps.

“Secondly, this is not me immediately tryin’ to dominate you or you tryin’ to submit to me, in the way that you might think. This is us workin’ together for you to give up control, establish trust, and explore your emotions. That’s actually very typical dom/sub stuff, but not necessarily something that you as an outsider would be familiar with.”

McCree paced back and forth a few steps. “We need to talk boundaries. You familiar with the stoplight system?” Gabe nodded assent, it had come up before on a few missions. “We’ll use that. Don’t be afraid to use them, please - we can’t figure things out ‘til we know where your limits are. On that note - I’ll be touchin’ you. A lot. As I said before, this isn’t sexual, but don’t be alarmed if you get more into it than you expect, it’s typical. And sometimes your body reacts without you wantin’ it to.” 

Gabe leaned back in his seat. He could already see a dozen ways that this could go wrong, and his feelings for McCree were about half of them. At least he’d already said that getting aroused was a possibility, he could shrug it off now.

“Other than the obvious, any physical problems I need to be aware of? Trick knee, bad shoulder, that kind of thing?”

Gabe gave a short, humorless laugh. “SEP may be turning me into a smoke monster, but it’s kept my body in good shape. And you know I’m more durable, more resistant than the usual. You don’t have to worry about hurting me.”

McCree stopped in his slow pacing, putting a hand under Gabe’s chin to tilt his face up and meet his eyes. “You’re not a monster. Don’t think that.” His eyes were so sincere, his voice so genuine, that Gabe believed him. Right up until he let Gabe’s face go, let him go back to his own thoughts. Maybe McCree really was good at this.

“Specifics, now. This is normally a lot more formal, but we’ll do this quick and dirty.” McCree went to the desk and pulled a sheet of paper with something printed on it and pen out of a drawer. He grabbed a clipboard as well, and leaned up against the desk.

“I feel like I’m at a doctor’s office.”

“Sorry I’m not as pretty as Angela, but I don’t want you panickin’ when we hit something you’re not comfortable with. I’m going to skip over a lot of these, based on my own preferences, what I know about you, and that this won’t be primarily sexual. I’ll list things off, just say yes, no, or maybe.”

“Okay,” said Gabe slowly. His brain was stuck on the ‘primarily sexual’. Did that mean sex might be involved? Jesus. What was he getting into?

“Asphyxiation and breath control.”

Gabe shook his head. “I’m sorry, my mind was wandering. Repeat that?”

“Asphyxiation and breath control. Choking. Yea or nay.”

Gabe considered a moment. “I’d like some warning, but sure.”

“Beating.”

“Yes.”

“Bondage.”

“Yes.”

“Blindfolding.” 

A long pause. Gabe really, really didn’t like having his vision restricted. He hated the few times they had to wear full helmets. He felt like he didn’t know what was happening, even though the screens in front of him gave him the same vision he had in reality, with augmentation. “Let’s say a maybe tending towards no.”

Gabe ended up being okay with any type of impact, chains, cuffs and restraints, kneeling, cutting and knifeplay, massage, and general pain. His hard nos included gags, hoods, humiliation, fireplay, and pretty much anything under sensory deprivation. He was sure this all was saying obvious things about him as a person, but he didn’t care to examine it too deeply. He idly wondered what McCree had skipped over. The list on the page looked long.

McCree set the paper back on the desk, and went behind Gabe. He dimmed the lights until they were low enough to still see by, but comfortable to the eye. Gabe resisted the urge to turn around and look at McCree, and was so focused on not turning that he jumped at the feel of hands on his shoulders.

“Calm, calm, okay? We’re gonna make you feel good, and relaxed, and in control.” McCree’s smooth voice came from right behind Gabe as strong hands rubbed at his tense shoulders. Gabe tried to make himself relax.

“We’re going to separate this a bit from work, hmm? So I’ll call you Gabe, and you’ll call me Jesse. All right?” Gabe nodded.

A sudden tap at his cheek, not a full slap but a small sting that was enough to startle. “I’d like verbal answers, please. Leaves less room for confusion.” 

“Okay,” Gabe said, tentatively. This was...fine. He could do this. The hands moved from his shoulders to his neck, rubbing pointedly at the tendons on the side that held so much tension. Gabe swallowed a moan, as calloused fingers manipulated his neck until it was warm and loose. Jesse’s - because he was Jesse now, not McCree - hands moved up once more, combing gently through Gabe’s hair and pulling his head back against something warm and firm.

“You know that you run your hands through your hair as a nervous tic, right? I always know when something bad is comin’ when you start to do that.” The fingers continued to comb. Gabe felt like he was some animal being petted. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, but it was certainly relaxing. “It’s not good for your hair, either. Messes up the curls. Try not to do it so much.”

“Okay,” Gabe murmured, not sure if he should have responded or not.

“Good.” 

Gabe’s eyes had closed by this point, and his head went backward abruptly when the firm thing behind him -  _ that was Jesse’s stomach, it had to be _ \- moved. He heard a soft clink, then his left hand was clasped in Jesse’s warm ones, pulled gently back.

“I’m going to put some cuffs around your wrists. Let me know if they’re too tight.” Leather firmly surrounded his wrist, wrapping around like a second skin. His other wrist was drawn back as well and wrapped up, then he heard a click as they were linked together. Gabe opened his eyes and stared into thin air as he shifted his arms and shoulders, testing their strength. There was metal around the soft leather, and he wasn’t going anywhere without dislocating a shoulder. Which of course, he’d done to get out of restraints more times than he could count, but that was neither here nor there.

As he pushed and pulled, a hand ran over his bulging arms, muscles moving under the smoky skin. “SEP did wonderful things for your body,” Jesse murmured as he came around to Gabe’s front, looking him over with an affectionate glance. Gabe looked away to the side, feeling uncomfortable. He found his head pulled back straight by a hand on his jaw, Jesse looking right into his eyes. “I know you don’t like compliments, but it’s polite to say thank you, or at least acknowledge them.”

“It was a compliment towards SEP, not me,” said Gabe, voice rougher than he expected.

Crow’s feet appeared at the sides of Jesse’s eyes, as a slight smile passed over his face. “True.”

Without warning, Jesse swung a leg over, settling himself on Gabe’s lap. He would have started, but he couldn’t with several hundred pounds of muscle now on his thighs. 

“Hello,” he said, looking up the few inches into Jesse’s face.

“Hi there.” A warm hand reached up to run through his hair again, soothing enough that Gabe automatically closed his eyes. “Tell me about what’s stressin’ you out.”

Gabe’s eyes snapped open, and he went to move his hands automatically to do...something, anything, but felt only a pull as his arms tensed against the restraints. Jesse patiently waited for him to still.

“So this is therapy, now.”

“It’s whatever I decide it to be, Gabe, and right now I’d like to know what’s stressin’ you out. There’s a reason that mysterious black smoke is coming from your pores, and maybe if you tried using your words for once, it might help.”

“I - Yellow, McCree.” McCree immediately moved backwards, pulling his hands from Gabe’s hair and not getting up but leaning back to put several feet of space between their torsos.

“There are...things I can’t talk about. You know that I trust you with a lot, but there are levels and levels, clearances and codewords, and some of it is above your head.”

“I understand. If we hit something that you can’t discuss, just say -” McCree looked up for a moment, thinking, before shining a child-like grin at Gabe. “Classified. Like all the spy movies.” 

“...You are an actual black ops agent. We literally deal with files stamped classified every day, I’m not sure why this is getting you all excited.”

McCree shrugged, using the movement to slide closer to Gabe. “It’s a safeword codeword. I’m amused.” He cupped Gabe’s jaw with a broad hand. “We good?”

Gabe exhaled. “Yeah. Green.” The hand was back in his hair. God, he could really get used to that.

“Do you need me to repeat the question?” came the steady but insistent voice.

“No, no. Um. First, obvious stress is this op going to hell.”

“Is it, though? He’s right next door, you’re going to wait for morning, and tag him on his way out. No muss, no fuss.”

“I...suppose. It’s been frustrating getting here, though.”

“Tell me about the frustration.”

Gabe paused, long enough for Jesse to stop the soothing passes through his hair and tighten his fingers. Gabe tried to suppress a shuddery breath at the sensation, but didn’t think he was very successful. 

“You’ve been gone.” The hand loosened, paused, then continued. Gabe was glad he was looking at Jesse’s collarbone instead of his face. “I didn’t realize how much you did for me, it’s been hard picking up the slack. Everyone has noticed I’ve been stressed.” He sighed. “And that led to me having Moira here, which is its own...thing.”

“Can you talk about it?” Jesse murmured. 

“Yes and no. I mostly don’t know how I feel about her, but I need to defend her to...outside interference.”

“Jack?” 

“Classified.”

“That’s fine. Anything else?”

“Well, I have smoke coming out of my body, does that count?”

“It might.” With a quick move, Jesse was out of the chair and pulling Gabe up out of it as well. “I want a good look at it.”

Reaching down, Jesse tugged Gabe’s shirt from where it was tucked in his pants, pulling it up to his chest. He pushed the collar over his face, then tugged it down his arms until it sat on top of the restraints. He circled the now-shirtless Gabe, scrutinizing him. Gabe felt a bit like a bug pinned to a board. Jesse finally got back around to his front. He waved a hand in front of Gabe’s chest, swirling the smoke. Jesse tried to gather it in a hand, but it seemed to slip by his fingers, as if it wasn’t quite as real as him. Gabe was trembling, every movement like ghostly breezes moving over him. 

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“It’s - like nothing I’ve ever felt. I don’t know how to describe it.”

Jesse continued to move his hand inches above Gabe’s chest. “Does pressure help, having something on your body?”

“Yeah. I think so. Though I don’t know if it’s actual physical covering or just…”

“Mental security?”

Gabe nodded, before remembering. “Yes.” Jesse gave him a smile that made him feel foolishly good. 

“Let’s try that out. I was going to, anyways.” He walked over to the nightstand and sorted through it until bringing out several hanks of brilliantly white rope. He slid the center binding loop off of one, shaking it out with practiced movements. Jesse tossed a loop over Gabe’s head, moving his fingers down to measure before pulling it off and making quick knots. “This is just a basic chest harness, hishi karada if you want to get specific. This one doesn’t do much other than look pretty and provide pressure, but it can be a base for other ties.”

Jesse put the loop back over Gabe’s head, and four knots went down his chest. Jesse tossed the ropes back between his legs, and pulled them up behind. The two ropes framed his crotch, making him feel a bit exposed. Jesse threaded the ropes around the one at his neck, then deftly worked them back and forth around his back down to his hips, a diamond pattern emerging. He tied them off at his waist, tightening them before he did so. He ran his fingers along the white lines, gleaming in the dim light.

“I knew these would look good against your skin,” he whispered, as much to himself as to Gabe. “You feeling okay?”

“It helps. The pressure helps.” Gabe moved a little, feeling the smooth ropes slide over skin and scars.

Jesse stepped forward, taking Gabe’s face in his hands. “You need to be really honest with me now, okay, Gabe? Do you have any shoulder problems, at all?”

Gabe frowned. “Well, I’ve dislocated both of them a time or ten, but they’ve always healed back up.”

Frowning himself, Jesse grabbed another hank of rope, but didn’t untie it. “What I want to do, you normally never do if someone has dislocated their shoulder but…”

“When have I ever been normal?”

A smile, and the bundle of ropes was shaken out. Jesse went behind Gabe, and he felt something going around his upper arms. “Ever heard of strappado?”

“Torture technique, roots in medieval times but still used in certain societies.”

“Good, very nice explanation. Also it’s what we’re goin’ to do now.” Jesse moved the chair from behind Gabe to in front of him, setting on top another skein of rope and odd scissors that Gabe recognized after a minute as trauma shears. Jesse walked Gabe backwards, looking upwards at something on the ceiling to position him. “Let me know if there is any tingling, or you feel any sharp pain.”

Gabe’s arms were slowly encased together in rope, something he could feel but not see. He was tense but relaxed, in a good way. He knew Jesse wouldn’t let him get hurt. His arms got closer and closer together behind his back, forcing his chest out as his shoulderblades tried to meet.

“Take deep breaths. We’ll figure out where to stop together,” Jesse said in his ear, a quick press of something to the back of the head before Gabe heard the slap of rope against the ceiling. Was that a kiss? Before he could think about it more, his encased arms started to be raised behind him, wrists first. Gabe found himself bending over, involuntarily. As his wrists went up, his shoulders went down. He widened his stance to try and keep stable, only to find this let Jesse bend him over more. 

Warm hands smoothed over his back, under the ropes. “You okay? Give me a color, Gabe.”

“Gr-green,” Gabe said, trying to catch his breath. Jesse’s voice was right by his ear now.

“Can you breathe alright? Are your shoulders stable, or do they feel like they might pop out?” Gabe took a deep experimental breath and shifted his arms as much as he could. They were aching already, intense pressure radiating down to his chest and spreading out. It was hard to take full breaths, but he could still inhale.

“I’m fine. It’s just- a lot.”

“I know, darlin’, I know.” A soft sound as the rope was tied off on something, then Jesse was in front of Gabe, stroking over the back of his neck and head. Gabe pushed forward, shoving his head the best he could into Jesse’s stomach. He felt like he had left his body back on the bed, that it was someone else that was covered in rope and bent over in front of his second-in-command.

“I was going to give you some hits, but it looks like you’re overwhelmed a bit right now. Am I readin’ that right?” 

Gabe nodded. He knew he should answer verbally, but he wasn’t sure what would come out of his mouth. Jesse sank down into a kneeling position. It meant Gabe wasn’t pressed into his stomach any more, but now he got Jesse’s head right next to his, temple to temple, Jesse’s hands moving over his face and neck.

“Still feeling the stress?”

Gabe shook his head. “No. Just feel pressure. Feel you.” 

“I thought that might be good for you. Let’s just be here for a little while.” Time went away, and Gabe’s world was reduced to Jesse’s hands on his face and the smooth, tight, even pressure around his torso and arms. It was quiet here. No alarms going off, no alerts that he had to attend to, no one was dying, no one was killing. He just felt good, felt loose. Somewhere there was a low buzz of arousal, his cock slowly filling out between the ropes between his legs. It wasn’t important, though. Not now.

It felt like hours later that Jesse stirred from his position. “It’s been awhile, it’s not good to be in this position too long. We’re going to get you upright, okay?”

“Okay,” Gabe rasped out, his voice feeling like it hadn’t been used in a week. Jesse got up, and Gabe’s face felt so cold where his hands had been. He felt the ropes that were pulling his hands to the ceiling loosen, and Jesse’s hands slowly but firmly pushed him upwards. When he was almost upright his legs trembled, and Jesse was there in front of him to catch him. He had Gabe’s rigging ropes still wrapped around his hand, keeping him in a slightly bent-over position. The rest of Gabe was pressed up against Jesse, his thigh slipping accidentally between Gabe’s legs.

A soft groan emerged inadvertently from Gabe’s throat, his cock rubbing against the firm thigh in front of him. Both men stilled, ragged breathing the only sound in the room. Jesse’s free hand reached up and gently stroked Gabe’s bare back between the ropes.

“You can keep going if you want. It’s okay.”

That ‘okay’ was the mantra that had followed him through the night, that was Jesse making sure that he was safe. It was what gave Gabe the courage to rock his hips forward, pushing against the muscled leg. Jesse kept rubbing his back soothingly, murmuring things into Gabe’s ear that he didn’t hear at all over the sound of his breath and the thunder of blood in his ears. He was making little noises in the back of his throat that he’d be embarrassed about if he was capable of shame at this point.

It was Jesse telling him that he was being so good for him that pushed Gabe over the edge. He helplessly, quietly moaned his orgasm out, rutting against Jesse’s leg and coming in his pants as his brain sparked like fireworks. Jesse didn’t seem to mind, letting go of the rope in his hand and bracing himself to take on Gabe’s weight. He half carried Gabe over to the bed, laying him carefully down on his stomach before starting to unwind all his work. Piece by piece came off, and before long he was undoing the leather cuffs. 

Jesse hauled him up to the top of the bed, tucking Gabe against his chest. “Here, drink this.” He held a bottle of water to Gabe’s lips, who found himself suddenly, desperately thirsty. He drained the bottle, feeling drained himself as he settled back against Jesse.

“Dunno if you noticed, but you stopped smoking about an hour ago,” Jesse said quietly into his ear. Gabe opened his eyes a bit further to look down at himself. Just his normal body. It worked.

“This is called aftercare, by the way. You need touch, you need water and food - let me know if you’re hungry, by the way - you need to recover. So I’m going to set an alarm for early tomorrow mornin’ and we’re just going to rest here and sleep.”

Gabe nodded into his chest, feeling like words would be some time in coming. He had come in his pants like a teenager and was cuddling with his Blackwatch subordinate in a way that was violating about five different regulations, but he didn’t care. His mind was more clear than it had been in a long, long time. He tucked his head under a bearded chin and slept.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Gabe’s eyes snapped open at five thirty in the morning. He always woke at that time, no matter where he was. On that note: where was he?

He kept his breathing even as he looked around the room, small bits of early morning light leaking in around the heavy curtains. It was a hotel? Memories came rushing back, and Gabe was suddenly, intimately aware of the broad chest he was tucked up against. Jesse was still fast asleep, mouth pressed to the back of Gabe’s head and breath hot on the back of his neck. Gabe gently moved Jesse’s arms inch by inch, until they were at his sides and no longer wrapped around Gabe. 

Standing, Gabe winced as he felt the evidence of last night pull where it glued hair to underwear. He gingerly walked over to what he was fairly sure was a bathroom, closing the door firmly before turning the light on. He looked at himself in the mirror. He looked...good, oddly enough, the lines on his forehead smoother than they normally were. The makeup Moira had put on was smeared beyond belief, so Gabe made it his first mission to wipe it all off. He looked younger without it, softer.

Damping down a washcloth, Gabe cleaned up the mess in his pants the best he could, before peeing, washing his hands, and rinsing his mouth out with the complimentary mouthwash. He looked himself over more carefully. Slight bruises around his wrists, but the leather had done a good job in protecting him from the metal of the restraints. There were no rope marks, but Gabe was sure they had been there before fading while he slept. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to see what they had looked like or not.

Shutting the light off before opening the door, Gabe sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the closed bedroom door. This was...something. He had no idea how to feel about it. It was successful in stopping his episode - he calculated times in his head, and it looked like he was smoking for only about forty five minutes before being stopped. He had totally lost track of time while hanging there with his wrists in the air and his head pressed to Jesse’s, but he was pretty sure he stopped when Jesse had bound his wrists and bent him over. Huh.

Gabe hadn’t been high recreationally since his army days, but this had felt a little like that, though so much more. He was reminded of a time when he was hit by some Talon concoction that had let him dazed and boneless for half a day before McCree and Genji broke into the lab and got him out. It certainly solved the smoking problem, but it was also overwhelming enough that Gabe didn’t know if it could be a good solution. Not to mention he rubbed himself off on Jesse afterwards, which wasn’t ideal. Though it had been in one of his top orgasms ever, not that he would ever say that aloud.

“I can feel you freakin’ out,” came Jesse’s quiet voice from behind him.

“I’m not freaking out. Just thinking.”

A creak from the bed as Jesse got up, then a warm line from thigh to shoulder as he sat close, so close to Gabe. “I thought we established that thinkin’ too much is what got your into this mess in the first place.”

Gabe cleared his throat. “I’m...sorry that you had to spend your night doing this. Taking care of me. Seeing me like that. I know you’re on vacation, and had -”

“No. No, no,” Jesse cut him off. “Don’t think like that. This is what I do for fun, Gabe, it’s enjoyable. If I wasn’t with you, I’d be either alone or with someone else that I liked a whole lot less. And it’s not…” Gabe couldn’t see very well in the darkness, but he could sense Jesse’s hands moving through the air in frustration.

“It’s not weakness, if that’s what you’re thinking. You’re not lesser, for being a sub in a particular scene. Submissives have all the power, that’s the dirty little secret. You can halt everythin’ with a single word, go back to being commander as fast as you want. But...it’s also  _ you _ when you’re in the scene. Just a different aspect of you. Not inferior. Just different.” 

Sometime during his speech Jesse’s hand had found Gabe’s, fingers still warm from sleep linked with his. 

“I can’t afford to be vulnerable.” Whether Gabe was referring to the smoke or the scene or them holding hands right then was unclear, even to Gabe.

Jesse sighed, heavier than might be expected. “That might fly when you’re not turnin’ into smoke. But here we are. So you’re going to let me be your second in command, and let me help you out when you need it. Okay?” Gabe’s breath caught for a moment before steadying.

“Okay.” Gabe let go of Jesse’s hand to stretch his arms out, cracking his elbows and then his neck. “I need to get ready for Bucer.”

“What do you need from me?” McCree - they were on mission, back to McCree now - waved off Gabe’s look with a dismissive hand. “I’m in the middle of this now, Reyes, you can’t get rid of me.”

Gabe walked over to where McCree had hung his coat in the closet, pulling out his tablet and wincing at the light. “It’s almost six. I told Moira to get here then, as I wasn’t sure when Bucer would be out.”

“Rooms shut down at six thirty, the place closes at seven so they can deep clean during the day.”

“All right. That gives us a bit of time.”

“Let’s go get some coffee, the bar serves it. And then we can see when the target comes out.”

Gabe pulled on his socks and boots, as McCree did the same. As he was pulling on his coat, his com activated with a crackle. “Reyes.”

“Moira. You in position?”

“Yes, across the street.”

“We’re waiting for just a bit. Rooms shut down at 6:30, whole thing shuts down at 7, so be ready for the car to show. See if you can get a tracker on it. I’m going to try and get one on Bucer’s person, ‘cause I’m afraid that coat is only for looking good here and he’ll leave it in the car or something.”

“All right. I’ll be waiting. I hope you had an enjoyable evening.” Her tone was lascivious enough to redden Gabe’s cheeks slightly, bringing a questioning look from McCree.

“I’ll check in soon. Eyes out for the vehicle.”

They wandered into the main room, golden light pouring in through the windows. Gabe was still feeling residual...something from the night before, and found himself walking much closer to McCree than usual, shoulders bumping and hands nudging at each other. They sat at the bar, McCree asking the still-present Eira for two cups of coffee. With a murmur to Gabe that he was going to the restroom, McCree got up, an absent hand trailing over Gabe’s back as he went.

Eira set two cups on the bar. Gabe added two packets of sugar to one and put it at McCree’s seat, drinking his plain. He felt Eira’s eyes on him and looked up, brow raised.

“I don’t mean to pry,” she said, leaning on the bar. “But I just can’t figure you two out.”

“How so?”

She started to organize the sugars and creamer. “I’ve seen thousands of people come and go here, over the years. Most just stop in for a few hours or a night, we’re right near the airport for a reason. Even then, I’ve learned to peg who is what, what they’re here for. This guy is dealing with his sexuality for the first time, that girl needs to feel in charge of something in her life, this couple is working through their issues and maybe it involves some enemas. You and Jesse, though. I just don’t know.”

Gabe stayed quiet, swirling the coffee in his mug. 

“I kind of know Jesse. Dom, top, but not an asshole about it. Not attached to anyone, though he did see this one guy fairly regular a few years back.” The muscles in Gabe’s shoulders tightened for no reason he could think of. “Never got a switch feeling from him. But you’re...I’m not sure. Not his usual. You two are just - something else. Hard to peg, your body language and all. You’re together, right? Outside?”

“No. We -” Gabe wasn’t sure what to say. “We work together.”

“Oh.” Clinking from mugs. “That must be hard to deal with.”

“We’re still working out the details.” 

A hand on his shoulder, fingers drawing his head to the side. “Ran into Bucer in the restroom, he’ll be coming out in a few. How you want to play it?” Jesse breathed into his ear.

Gabe turned in his seat towards Jesse, using the time to think. He pulled him close, between his spread legs, so he could speak without Eira hearing. “Stumble and tag? Maybe still a bit out of it from last night.” Jesse slipped a hand into his coat pocket, separating out a tracker before palming it. 

“You hit, I’ll tag.” Gabe ducked his head in agreement, then tightened his grip on Jesse’s waist when he went to move away. “Stay while I talk to Moira.”

Jesse nodded. Faking a conversation for the sake of coms was a regular occurrence. 

“Moira.”

“Reyes.”

“We’re going to try and tag Bucer in the next few minutes. You have eyes on the car yet?”

“No. If you already have the man, why bother with the vehicle?”

“It might just drop him off. We can split up if needed, track both.”

“...I see the vehicle now, same as last night. I’ll let you know when I’m done.”

“Okay. Reyes out.”

Jesse stroked a thumb around the collar of Gabe’s shirt. “You need my car? I’m parked a block away. Rental.”

Gabe looked him in the eyes. They were standing so close, Jesse’s outer thighs warm against Gabe’s inner legs, his hands lazily tracing over details of Gabe’s jacket collar and shirt. “I meant it when I said I didn’t want to ruin your vacation.”

“And I meant it when I said it’s been fun.” He shrugged. “You know you never really escape the job. How many nights off have you had interrupted by work?”

Gabe was rubbing absent circles with his thumbs into the muscle at McCree’s waist when his eye caught movement from the hallway. “Showtime.”

He kept an arm around McCree’s waist as they made their way over, bumping into tables and faking quiet laughter as they went. Gabe let a broad shoulder catch Bucer nearly in the face, spinning him around for McCree to catch him. 

“Are you okay? I’m sorry man, I didn’t see you there.” Gabe said, facial expressions exaggerated.

“”It’s fine, it’s fine. Looks like you had a very good night,” leered the short man, eyes moving slimily over Gabe’s body. 

“That I did,” Gabe said with a goofy smile. “Come on, babe,” he said to McCree, who was glaring daggers at Bucer before smoothing his face out to smile at Gabe. They made their way over to the restroom, where they shut and locked the door behind them. Quickly checking stalls for errant visitors, Gabe leaned against the sink and activated his com.

“Moira. Bucer is tagged and should be at you in just a minute.”

“I see him. Tracker is on the car.”

“We’ll be out in just a moment. I’ll be in McCree’s car, we’ll follow you and if they split, I’ll go with Bucer and you track the vehicle.”

“Got it. O'Deorain out.”

They exited the restroom, and McCree jerked a thumb at the side entrance. “I’ll grab my car, pull it around.”

“I’ll meet you outside.” Gabe made his way back to the bar, putting some money down for the coffee. “It was good to meet you, Eira.”

“You too. Come back, when there’s an event or something going on. It gets fun around here.” Gabe smiled, and turned to go to the door. “Gabriel?” He turned back, seeing Eira look at him with a serious look on her face. “I don’t know what you have, but it’s a good thing. Don’t let him go.” Gabe paused, before giving a crooked smile and walking out into sunlight. 


	3. Chapter 3

The operation finished with more of a whimper than a bang. Bucer himself led to a Talon facility that none of them had suspected existed, and the car brought Moira to the airport, where she followed Bucer’s handlers to Morocco. 

Gabe wrote the reports - saying that he had accidentally run into McCree, who generously decided to assist in the investigation. Jack was happy, Ana was still suspicious of Moira, and they had great intel on the planned attack at the gala thanks to the bugs that they were able to get into the Talon facility. They were destroyed in a sweep a week out from the gala, but it looked like it was routine maintenance, not discovery.

The team for Luxembourg consisted of Gabe, McCree, Genji, and Patrick, a Irish sniper that Ana had trained up personally. Amusingly, he and Moira despised each other, some deep-seated feud from their childhood hometowns still raising its ugly head. Angela and Lena were accompanying, as everyone was expecting a rough time with medical assistance needed afterwards. Gabe knew that Jack also wanted Overwatch eyes on the ground, but he was too thankful of the extra help to complain much.

They flew in under cover of darkness, Lena complaining the whole way that the Blackwatch Orca had too sensitive of controls. She dropped them off on the edge of Luxembourg City, off to park the ship somewhere hidden and make her own way over to them. They checked into a pricey hotel, already establishing their personas as wealthy businesspeople interested in the monetary advantages of human-omnic allied society.

Patrick was going to be outside, on a rooftop that had a perfect view of the entrance to the hotel that the event would be held at. Genji and Lena would pose as a couple, Genji in the rare mission position of revealing all of his mechanical limbs to serve as a representative of omnic technology on a human form. Gabe and McCree would wander solo before trying to stop the main Talon contingent from coming from the kitchens. Lena and Genji would try and catch anyone that made it into the ballroom, and Patrick would snag anyone that made it outside. Angela was at a cafe on the other side of the hotel from Patrick to get anyone that might go out the back.

Gabe shared a room with McCree, but it wasn’t weird. It was almost strange, in fact, how normal it was for them, after the club. McCree acted the same as he ever did, like nothing had happened other than what Gabe wrote in his mission report. Gabe supposed that he must be fairly good at this kind of compartmentalizing, if he had been doing this for as long as he said. McCree had never struck him as the casual sex type of person, but what he did, what they did...it wasn’t sex, despite the orgasm. Not really. It was something else.

Gabe himself was too busy with organization of the mission to worry about it. He hadn’t felt any warning tingles, and was hoping that what he did with McCree would last for awhile. He carefully didn’t think about what would happen the next time.

They dressed for the gala in their rooms, carefully layering bulletproof armor under crisp white shirts. Gabe watched McCree comb his hair back from the corner of his eye as he tied his bowtie. He’d never get used to him dressed up, no matter how strangely natural he looked in it. McCree always looked at home in whatever he wore, whether it was a thousand dollar tuxedo or threadbare t shirts and sweatpants cut down to shorts while training. 

McCree caught his eye in the mirror. “You ready for tonight?”

Gabe slid a knife into an arm sheath before putting in his cufflinks, checking to make sure he could get to it. “I think we’re as prepared as we can be. Far as Winston could tell, they still don’t know we bugged them. Patrick and Angela are in position already.”

Draping a silk scarf behind his neck and over his lapels, McCree cocked his head at him. “And how are you...feeling? It’s your first big mission since last time.”

Oh, so they were talking about this now. All right. “No warning signs. Might all go to hell later on, but it’s not like I can really prepare for it.” 

McCree opened his mouth, about to say something, then seemed to rethink it and turned to slide a pistol into a shoulder holster. 

“What?”

“Nothing, boss. Just an idea. We’ll talk later, let’s get this show on the road.” 

-x-x-x-x-x-

Everything went to hell.

Talon had made some changes to their plan in the week their bugs were dead. They had expected that, expected things not to go exactly to plan.

They didn’t expect the bomb.

People and omnics died, with black and red figures everywhere they looked. Blackwatch did admirably, given the odds they were up against. Gabe ran out of ammo early on, snatching up a series of weapons from dead Talon agents and using them ‘til they were empty.

Lena caught a piece of shrapnel to the chest when the bomb went off, damaging her accelerator. She thankfully stayed in the present, but was gushing blood from her side. Unable to get a location on Angela, Gabe solved the issue by wrapping his cumberbund around her chest, picking her up, and holding her relatively insignificant weight with one arm on his hip like carrying a child. 

“My calvary,” she said with a smile and pat to Gabe’s cheek before passing out. 

Blackwatch managed to either kill or drive off the Talon agents, but the damage was done. The gala, and its admirable mission, would be turned into a symbol of international violence. 

They rendezvoused as a team in Gabe and McCree’s room, after everything ended and the few captured operatives were carted away. Gabe had to get Angela’s help to unlock his arm from around Lena - it had knotted up who knows how long before. 

The team trickled out one by one, until Gabe and McCree were left alone, surrounded by bloody towels and gauze and ripped pieces of eveningwear. 

Gabe was numb. Numb to everything, even fatigue. He stood with his legs locked and looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows out into the glittering city and felt nothing.

“It wasn’t your fault,” came a quiet voice from behind him. “You did all the research, gathered all the intel you could. It was just one we couldn’t beat.”

He stayed silent. Footsteps, as McCree came up behind him. “Come on, Reyes. You’re coated in blood. Let’s get some shut eye -” he stopped talking. Came closer. “Reyes...it’s happening again.”

Gabe held a hand up in front of him, unsurprised to see blackness boiling off of his skin. He let his hand drop back down to his side. Might as well happen tonight. Only four weeks since last time.

McCree moved in front of him, blocking his view of the windows. He met the other man’s eyes, watching them widen at whatever expression was on his face, he couldn’t even tell at this point.

A hand reached out, stroked through the blackness on his cheek. “Can I help you? Let me help you.”

The sincere look in his eyes was what broke Gabe down. “Can you make me feel something?”

A nod. “Come on, darlin’. Let’s get you out of these clothes.” Gabe let Jesse undress him piece by piece, sodden jacket coming off first, followed by a shirt that was pink from blood and sweat. He stepped out of his pants, shoes tossed somewhere behind him. Body armor tonight was pretty much just a wrap of bulletproof fabric, going from shoulders to waist and secured with hooks. It was unwound and set to the side, the plinking of scattershot hitting the hardwood floor echoing in the quiet. 

Gabe was down to his underwear when he was pushed forward step by step, until he was gripping the waist-high safety bar set in front of the windows. Jesse undid the latches and opened the windows as much as he could, the scent of cool night air soon filling the room. Gabe heard rustling, the zip of a bag. Jesse must be in Gabe’s bag, his own was fastened with buckles. He didn’t know what he might be getting from there, it was just clothing and spare ammo. Footsteps, and Jesse’s hands smoothed over Gabe’s back, stroking gently from shoulders to waist and back again. “Don’t move your hands.”

Chill on his back, then a bright stripe of pain on his left shoulder. Gabe gasped before he could stop himself, hands tightening on the bar as a warm hand soothed over the lash. He had a belt in his bag, a thin one he’d worn with his businessman travelling attire yesterday. That must be what this was.

The warmth moved away, and there was a pause long enough to make Gabe start to tense. Another snap, another streak of fire on his other shoulder. Yet another on the meat of the large muscle covering his ribs on the left side. It was pain, but it was centering. Each stroke brought him more out of the cloud of stupefaction, closer to reality. He had been unable to think, but in a bad way, in a way that was just a mass of guilt and fatigue. This moment suspended in time, laps of a fiery tongue down his back, was unexpectedly its own pleasure.

The first time the belt licked at his thigh, Gabe groaned and moved his legs apart. A long pause, before Jesse cleared his throat and began alternating between torso and thighs. The few times the end of the belt caught Gabe’s inner thigh, he had to bite his lip to keep from jerking his hips. He didn’t know how to ask for that, didn’t know if he should.

Gabe was back with the world now, head clear, and maybe two more thigh hits away from orgasm when he heard the belt fall to the ground behind him. He felt Jesse’s forehead rest against the top of his spine, his arms wrapping around as the smooth fabric of his shirt pressed to Gabe’s smarting back.

“I can take more.”

“Probably. I can’t.” Breath on Gabe’s shoulder, making him shiver. “You’re not the only part of this equation.” 

They stayed in that position for a while, Gabe looking out at the lights of the city and seeing them this time, Jesse against his back. “We stopped it, at least.”

“Yeah.” Gabe unlocked his smokeless hand from around the bar - it took a minute - before reaching back and clumsily patting at Jesse’s side. “Thank you. Again.”

“Mmm.” A slight shifting behind him. Jesse moved his head to rest on Gabe’s shoulder, looking out at the city. “Pretty.”

Gabe meant to reply, but Jesse’s hand had moved down, by accident or design, fingertips just brushing the waistband of his underwear. Instead, he drew in a shaky breath. Jesse stilled behind him, and Gabe could feel his chin dig in as he looked down. He moved his hand just a millimeter, so the pads of his fingers were now on top of the waistband.

“You need help?”

Gabe nodded, belatedly whispering, “Yes.”

“Ask for it.”

It took a minute, Jesse waiting patiently behind him. “Can you help me with this?”

“With what, Gabe?”

Damn him. He felt the heat in his cheeks. “Can you help me come?”

“You only had to ask,” came the calm reply, before a hand slid against the front of his underwear, cupping his hardness. A thumb rubbed over the dampness at the head of Gabe’s cock, as his other fingers stroked gently through the fabric. Gabe doubted this would be enough - he wasn’t eighteen anymore - but then teeth scraped over a mark on his shoulder and his orgasm was startled out of him. The metal bar creaked as Gabe tightened his grip past the point of pain, pulsing into his underwear against Jesse’s palm as he hissed through his teeth. The afterglow lasted longer than usual, the haze of it so different than the haze of numbness from before.

“Go shower. Then come to bed.”

“Okay,” mumbled Gabe, before Jesse’s arms released him. He took a tentative step, then another as he was sure his legs could hold him. In the bathroom, Gabe looked at himself in the large mirrors. He looked unmistakably post-coital, color high in his cheeks and pupils large. He turned, biting his lip at the way his flesh burned as the skin at his waist twisted. There were red marks all over his dark skin, no blood but long perfect skillfully-raised welts. He had to turn the temperature in the shower to cool, anything more feeling like pins and needles against the contusions. 

He washed slowly and thoroughly, before wrapping a towel around his waist and exiting into the darkened room. Gabe pulled on fresh underwear, making a quiet sound as the cloth scraped over tender skin. He went to Jesse’s bed without even thinking about it, crawling in next to him and collapsing onto his stomach.

He felt Jesse lean over, grab something off of the nightstand. “Lie still,” he murmured, before starting to rub something into Gabe’s back. He recognized the cool minty smell of Angela’s general salve, mostly used for aching muscles and strains. Jesse rubbed it in carefully to everywhere he had hit, shoulders down to knees. He set it back on the stand and turned off the light, Gabe’s arm snaking around him to pull him close to his side as soon as he lay back down. With an amused huff, Jesse settled, wrapping an arm around the relatively safe area of Gabe’s waistband. Gabe fell asleep so fast he didn’t notice.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Five thirty. Wake up time. Gabe had only fallen asleep a few hours before, but his brain was locked into its schedule. He was covering Jesse like a blanket, draped over his chest with their legs tangled together. He was hard in that vague early-morning way that had nothing to do with arousal, and could feel Jesse in the same situation, pressed to his thigh. 

The breathing above him didn’t change, but the steady heartbeat under his cheek did, speeding up a bit at Jesse woke up. The hand pressed to his back stroked a little, making Gabe catch his breath when callouses scraped over a sore spot. Gabe could feel the dick against his thigh harden but didn’t think much of it - there was a warm body draped over Jesse, he could hardly blame him. 

“Sorry,” Jesse mumbled, voice thick with sleep. 

“ ‘s fine,” Gabe said back, voice muffled by Jesse’s shirt. 

“How’s your back?”

“Sore but good.”

“Mmmkay. It help?”

“Yeah. Brought me back.”

Jesse’s hand that wasn’t on Gabe’s back reached up, tangling in his hair. As it stroked through, fingers teasing out knots, Gabe felt himself melting down, turning into a vaguely Gabe-shaped blob puddling on Jesse and the bed.

“I was gonna say something last night, maybe I should have even though we didn’t have time. If you know that something big is happening, maybe we could get in front of it. Like a, a vaccination.”

“Or a preemptive strike.”

“Not unlike, I s’ppose. Wouldn’t have to be so intense, just something to get your head on straight.”

The faint sound of horns and bird chirps as the city woke up drifted in through the open window.

“What if I like it intense?” Gabe wasn’t sure how he was asking the question, which meaning he wanted Jesse to get out of it.

“We can do that too. I’m just tryin’ to think of what we can do to prevent this from happening in the field. Right now it’s just smoke and weakness, but what if it’s something else next time? You’re - you’re too important. To the team. To Blackwatch.”

“To you.”

“Mmm.” It wasn’t a no.

The hand moving over Gabe’s back didn’t pause, but a nail scraped over a mark, causing Gabe to tighten his grip on Jesse’s waist for a moment. The hand paused, before resuming its journey.

“Let’s try and grab a little more sleep, we’re not meetin’ up ‘til nine.”

“ ‘Kay.” Gabe settled himself a little more comfortably, lulled into a doze by the steady beat of Jesse’s heart.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Life went back to normal for awhile, after the excruciating debrief with Jack and Ana about the failed mission. He knew they didn’t blame him - he knew exactly how they acted when they did, and this wasn’t that. He blamed himself, though. They had small missions here and there: pick up this package, kill this assassin, get a set of plans from this person to that person.

He met with Moira, telling her about the most recent episode. Gabe let her think that he and McCree were sleeping together - it was easier to explain, easier to understand. He barely understood their relationship himself. Phrasing it as delicately as he could, Moira agreed with his description of Jesse’s suggestion, of getting together before a possibly triggering incident.

“This is all a bandaid, you know,” Moira said as Gabe stood to leave. “No matter how good dear Jesse is in bed, he won’t always be around and available. He could be in Timbuktu, or quit, or be killed.” Gabe’s fists clenched, the edge of a nail drawing blood.

She was right, of course. He needed to fix it at its source, not mitigate the symptoms. 

“You should ask Jack.” Gabe closed his eyes for a moment. Right again, damn her.

That was a last resort. Because asking would mean admitting that there was something about him that was wrong, that was weak. That shouldn’t be in charge of Blackwatch. 

Not just yet.

-x-x-x-x-x-

They tried it out. It seemed to work, keeping Gabe together when in the field. There was only one incident in six months, when Jesse had been on a mission right beforehand.

Gabe found a room that hadn’t been assigned to anyone in Blackwatch, tucked away in a corner. Because of the facility’s asymmetric design it was smaller than usual, far less storage space than typical quarters. It had a bed and a shower though, and that was good enough for their purposes. He quietly took it off the system as being available, put a “DO NOT ENTER” sign on the door, and keyed it to his and McCree’s biometrics.

It wasn’t often, just as much as he needed. It might be an evening tied up while Jesse relaxed next to him reading, or it might be steady lashes of a riding crop to the bottoms of his feet until his legs cramped. Usually he came, sometimes he didn’t. Jesse always stayed fully clothed, and kept a layer of fabric between him and Gabe’s dick. Gabe wondered if that was for him, or for Jesse. 

Everything was under control, until Antarctica. Mei and her team ended up caught in the crossfire between Australian forces and Talon, both of whom felt they deserved the area that the Ecopoint resided in. 

They ended up fighting out in the snow and ice, everyone seeming to move in slow motion through the whiteness but the bullets flew by oh so fast. Genji was thrown off a cliff, but unlike every other time he didn’t vault over the side moments later. Gabe had to activate his tracker after all the violence ended, and found him with ice clogging up his mechanics, fluids moving slower and slower through his inhuman limbs. 

Moira and Gabe kept him as warm as they could, with blankets and biotics and body heat. When they got back to HQ, Moira murmured in his ear that he should be glad that he was wearing so many layers, before giving him a significant look and hauling Genji’s stretcher off to the infirmary. Gabe caught his reflection in the side of the Orca, and could see bits of smoke escaping around the fur-lined hood of his winter gear. 

Gabe made it to the spare room without being seen, messaging McCree to come over. McCree found him sitting on the bed, shivering, smoke coming off of him in odd jagged ribbons. He stroked a hand over Gabe’s shaking shoulders before ordering him to take a shower and warm up.

He emerged in a cloud of steam wearing only underwear, to see Jesse waiting patiently on the bed, ropes and a beautiful wood-handed flogger sitting on the nightstand next to him. There were knots in the ends of each of the suede braids, and Gabe felt his mouth dry out in anticipation. Gabe’s tablet buzzed, and he went to check it out of habit. 

“Anyone dyin’?” Jesse asked, voice even.

“No. Just a message from Jack about the debrief tomorrow.” The tablet was taken out of Gabe’s hands, and set deliberately aside. 

“You need to not look at that for a while.”

“But Genji -”

“Is there anything you’d be able to do? Or would it just be updates?” Jesse’s voice wasn’t cruel, but it was unyielding in the face of Gabe’s anxiety.

“I can’t just abandon things, not when we just got off a mission.” The smoke thickened.

“How about this. If it goes off, I’ll take a look. Not open it, just see what’s on the screen. If it looks important, you can address it. But otherwise it stays over there. Okay?”

Gabe nodded. “All right.” Hands brushed down his arms to hold his wrists for just a moment. 

“On the bed, on your knees.”

Jesse tied his thighs to his ankles, murmuring something about a frog tie. Gabe just knew that with every wrap of the rope, something in him relaxed, strand by strand. His wrists were bound together and then secured to the headboard, leaving him on his stomach with feet in the air, vulnerable. The first lick of the flogger to his back made him writhe, settling with Jesse’s hand on his back.

Everything should have been perfect - confined by rope to push him down, touches of pain everywhere to bring him up. But Gabe’s brain was stuck on the image of Genji lying like a discarded toy in the snow and ice, red eyes barely blinking away the snow.

All of his agents were important, every one of them. But some had wormed their way into Gabe’s affections more than he wanted to admit.

An eternity later, Jesse sat by Gabe’s head on the bed, hand going automatically to smooth through Gabe’s hair. Gabe turned his head to look up at him the best he could. Jesse’s shirt was soaked with sweat, his face frowning down at his free hand in his lap.

“Yellow. I’m starting to draw serious blood, Gabe. I’m not comfortable going farther with this when it’s not helping you.”

Gabe could feel the trickles of fluid down his back, but had assumed it was sweat. He could also tell that the smoke wasn’t going anywhere. Tucking his head back down between his arms, he sighed. “What now, then?”

Silence, long enough for Gabe to lift his head back up and look at Jesse with an eye. 

“There’s...something we could try. It’s more, hm, intimate than what we’ve been doing.” To Gabe’s surprise, there was actually some color in Jesse’s cheeks. Through everything they’d done, he’d never seen the man blush.

“You have my blood on your hands right now, Jesse. How much more intimate do you want?”

“That’s not -” Jesse pulled his hand out of Gabe’s hair to rub his forehead for a moment, before lowering his hand and looking down steadily at Gabe. “Do you trust me?”

“With anything,” came the automatic reply.

Jesse winced a bit at that. “You shouldn’t - argh.” The hand was at his forehead again. “Okay, then.” He reached up, and untied Gabe’s hands from the headboard. “Let’s get you flipped over.”

With Jesse’s help, Gabe moved onto his back, his hands retied up above him. His knees were in the air, feet flat on the bed. “Are you feeling any numbness? Especially in your feet.”

Gabe shook his head. They’d found that Gabe could handle far longer in tied positions than any normal person, but eventually did reach a limit. Not right now, though.

Jesse stood above him, fiddling with the flogger, but not like he was going to do anything with it. More like he was nervous. That was...new. He set it down, and picked up the ever-present trauma shears. “You aren’t particularly attached to that underwear, are you?”

“No?” Gabe said, in some confusion. He heard the drawer to the nightstand open, then close. Jesse moved to the foot of the bed, out of his view. He couldn’t move his head from side to side, trapped as it was between his arms. He could tilt it forward a bit though, and did so then, just in time to see Jesse snip the shears through the sides of his underwear and pull it off of him.

“Jesus!” Gabe clamped his bound legs together, though he wasn’t sure if it was at the sudden exposure of his rapidly thickening cock to the air or the idea of the scissors being so close to important parts of his anatomy.

Jesse knelt on the bed, a hand on each of Gabe’s knees, looking at him steadily in the dim light. “We can stop, any time you want. Including now.”

Gabe took in a shaky breath.

“Do you trust me?” The same question from before, same intonation.

Though he knew he should answer verbally, Gabe thought he might be forgiven this time. He let his legs fall open, Jesse’s hands carefully arranging them to either side of him as he settled himself. Gabe let his head fall back to look at the ceiling, before closing his eyes.

They flew open a moment later as a warm, slick finger touched his entrance. It played a little with the wrinkled flesh, pausing with just the very tip pushing in a millimeter. “Color, Gabe.”

Gabe’s throat worked for a moment before whispering out, “Green.”

The finger slid all the way in, a smooth intrusion into dark places. Gabe’s dick certainly didn’t seem to mind, regardless of what his brain thought, fully hardening in moments. As the finger worked in and out, easier as he loosened up, there was an analytical part of Gabe’s brain that found his reaction interesting. He’d had sex with men, women, and those identifying as neither over the years, but the one common element was that he always did the penetrating. At this point in his life he wasn’t sure if it was a preference or just what was expected - you’d never predict a man that looked like Gabe with his type of job to do anything but top, so that was what he did. 

He intellectually understood that there must be something appealing about bottoming, but never bothered to find out what. He enjoyed himself enough, why mess with what worked? His masturbation habits had always been similarly perfunctory, drilled into him by a lifetime of living around others with no expectation of privacy. Do it in the shower, maybe quickly in bed late at night, just a hand with as quick of cleanup as possible. This, what Jesse was doing, was something even more foreign than ropes or beatings. That he had experienced before in other contexts, but this was new.

A second finger joined the first, a bit of burn before the muscles started to relax. Gabe was just getting into the groove and almost zoning out when the fingers turned, stroked something unexpected, and Gabe’s hips jerked up with a bitten off noise.

Jesse quickly dealt with that, spreading Gabe’s legs farther so that his knees were pressed to the bed on either side by Jesse’s elbows. One hand held down his hips, as the other worked in and out. Gabe’s breathing started to come faster as the fingers moved fluidly, irregularly hitting his prostate. Just as he was starting to feel the tingle that signified orgasm, something tightened brutally around the base of his cock, the fingers stilling inside him. Gabe raised his head in frustration, glaring down at Jesse, but he just lay there with fingers holding Gabe firm, small smile on his face.

Gabe settled back down, feeling Jesse’s fingers gently loosen. The fingers inside started up again, joined by wet fingers on his cock itself. He could feel Jesse’s warm breath on his thighs and dick, and that was what brought him once more to the brink just minutes later. And once more, just as his balls were drawing up, Jesse stopped with tight fingers around him, not letting him continue.

This continued for what seemed like hours but was surely less. Each time he was stopped was like missing a step when going down stairs he’d been down a thousand times before - a moment of disorientation before frustration and trying to reestablish himself. His world had narrowed to the two hands, on top of and inside of him.

Finally, finally, Jesse spoke up over Gabe’s increasingly harsh breathing. “You’ve stopped smoking, Gabe.”

A sound that was nearly too primal to be a moan was pulled from Gabe’s chest. He had never wanted an orgasm more in his life.

“Ask for it.”

“Please please Jesse please let me come oh please I need it…” breathy speech drifted off into meaningless mutterings as Jesse’s hand sped up, thumb rubbing under the head.

A fingernail dug into his slit just as Jesse said, “Okay. Come for me,” and Gabe’s world whited out. He lost the plot for awhile, overwhelmed by what his body decided to do. He vaguely felt his chest being covered in ropes of come, vaguely felt his hips jerking against Jesse’s firm arms. Everything had dissolved into a mess of pleasureJessepleasure, and Gabe let himself sink into the whiteness with a rapturous sigh.

When he came back to himself, his chest was clean and his arms were laying calmly by his sides, everything untied. Jesse had his back to him, rubbing his right calf. Attention pulled by some noise that Gabe must have made, Jesse turned, smiling warmly down at him. 

“Welcome back to the land of the living.”

Gabe thought that maybe he should be embarrassed, but he felt too good to feel much of anything other than contentment. He pawed at Jesse with a pleasure-clumsy hand, and Jesse willingly moved back to let Gabe curl into him. 

As he reached over to turn the lights out, Jesse murmured, “I’ll set an alarm, though you’ll probably wake up anyways. Message from Jack said debrief at 0700.”

Gabe just snuffled into Jesse’s shirt before passing out.


	4. Chapter 4

Time passed. Things got better. Mostly.

Their scenes changed, were now more about enjoyment of the moment than trying to avoid disaster. They never went quite as deep as they had right after Antarctica, but Jesse was willing to touch Gabe naked now, and Gabe was more able to ask for what he wanted.

The whole time around Italy was a mess. McCree and Moira both checked in on Gabe to the point of distraction after Gérard was hurt, expecting him to dissolve into smoke at any minute. He didn’t, though. After a year of learning what emotional regulation felt like, he was finally starting to get a grasp on it.

Not that there weren’t hiccups.

The night after they returned from Venice, Gabe stopped by McCree’s room, knocking on the door. McCree opened it, looking tired and annoyed in sleep clothes.

“Go away, Reyes. Not in the mood.”

He let the door swing shut, but Gabe stopped it with a foot, following McCree into his quarters. When McCree sat on the edge of his bed and realized Gabe was still there, his eyes narrowed.

“I’m not joking. No scenes, I’ll just end up beatin’ you for real.”

“I’m not asking for one.” He wasn’t. Had everything gone to hell? Yes. But Gabe stood by what he’d done, even as no one was happy with him about it. “I just wanted to talk.”

“About what? About how you threw the plan out the window and just expected us to go along with it?”

“I evaluated -”

“You evaluated nothing! Antonio called you out by name, and you were more willing to risk us all bein’ killed than havin’ one person know about us. We could have carted him back, gotten some good intel off of him!”

“It wasn’t that: he wasn’t going to tell us anything and you know it. If Talon didn’t have some kill switch installed in him, he’d resist just to be an asshole. Antonio and Talon thought that he was untouchable, and the message that killing him sent is going to be more effective than any intel we could get.”

“And you said yourself that there are a dozen associates to take his place. This changed nothing.”

Gabe threw his hands up in the air, walking in a quick circle before coming back to point a finger at McCree. “Why are you so upset about this? You’ve killed so many people I guarantee you’ve lost count. Why does this one get to you? I promise that he wasn’t a good person.”

McCree swatted his finger away but sagged back after, like a puppet with his strings cut. Gabe noticed the lines around his eyes, too many for a man of thirty. “Through all these years, through all the dead bodies, I kept going because I knew that we were still doin’ the right thing. Still on the side of the good guys. Call it atonement if you want.”

He looked up at Gabe, exhaustion apparent in his face that ran deeper than just post-mission tiredness. “I shoot at people that shoot back, Reyes. I don’t do executions. And that’s what last night was.”

Gabe sat next to him on the bed, feeling suddenly drained himself. “I disagree with the execution part. He didn’t have a physical gun on us but he was ready to pull a trigger. But...I get the rest. You know that it’s not how I do things, either.”

They sat quietly for a time, each thinking their own thoughts. McCree’s sigh echoed suddenly on the air, and he pushed himself back, swinging his legs around Gabe to stretch them out on the bed. “I’m tired. Need to call it a night.”

Gabe nodded, and made to get up. Before he could do much more than settle his feet on the floor, there was a gentle hand on his back. He turned to look at McCree.

McCree chewed on his lower lip for a moment, before dropping his hand. “You could stay. Just to sleep, nothing else,” he hurriedly continued.

Meeting McCree’s eyes, Gabe looked unwaveringly at him until McCree looked away. McCree never looked away first. In lieu of an answer, Gabe stripped off his boots, pulling clothing off until he was down to undershirt and boxers. He slipped under the covers next to McCree, reaching over to turn out the light as he did so.

They’d never slept together unless it was after a scene or during a mission. They lay facing each other in bed, just inches between them but not touching. With Gabe’s breath stirring McCree’s hair and McCree’s washing over Gabe’s throat, they didn’t need to. Despite the mission, despite the harsh words, Gabe fell asleep easily, warmth radiating from the body beside him.

When Gabe woke at his usual time, it was to find McCree tucked up into him, lips resting on his collarbone and hand fisted into his shirt. He gently extricated himself and redressed, letting himself brush a hand over McCree’s brow before leaving.

He walked slowly back to his quarters, lost in his thoughts. When Jack appeared out of nowhere to crowd him in the corridor, he jumped a mile.

“Where the hell did you come from? And why are you over in our area anyways, it’s not even six am.”

“More like where were you, Gabe! Your tablet is off and I’ve been knocking on your door all night.”

Gabe pulled his tablet out of his pocket to see that it indeed had run out of charge. He was debating about how to explain his absence when Jack continued.

“Whatever, I don’t care who you’re fucking. You have bigger problems. Moira is out.”

“What do you mean, out?”

“I mean that people in Overwatch other than me and Ana know about her, and they know about what she’s done, what she did. Pictures from Venice got out. Everyone saw. She’s burned, and we’re disavowing her.”

Gabe felt like he was still in Rialto, bullets flying around him. “Jack...I - _we_ need her. I brought her on for specific reasons, no one can do what she can.”

Jack turned, fixed him with an expectant blue eye. “What, Gabe? What do you need a geneticist for that you couldn’t get out of Angela or Winston?”

Gabe’s mouth opened and closed, soundless. “I can’t tell you that.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing that it won’t be a problem any more. I’d move, so you can tell her yourself. The message was already sent to her, but she may not have seen it yet.” If nothing else, Jack didn’t seem to be taking pleasure in this. Like Ana he had never warmed to Moira, but he trusted Gabe to put together the team he needed. It didn’t make anything better.

With a final furious look at Jack, Gabe wheeled around and walked at just this side of a jog over to the labs. Moira wouldn’t be in her quarters. He knew that she slept in her lab most nights, when she slept at all.

Gabe didn’t bother knocking, just typed in his override code into the lab’s keypad. Moira was standing with her back to him, staring at a screen. “Come to gloat, Gabriel?”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

She turned, looked at him with her mismatched gaze. “No, you wouldn’t then, would you. You were the one who wanted me here, after all.”

“Jack just told me, a few minutes ago. I’m sorry, for what that’s worth.”

“You know, I believe you actually are.” She turned away from him, surveying her lab. “How long do I have?”

“I don’t know, Jack didn’t say. I would make sure you have backups of your data, and backups of your backups.”

“They’re already sent to an offsite location.” Moira took an actual paper pad off of her desk, one of the only non-digital items in the room. She scribbled something on it, before tearing off the page and holding it out to Gabe. He took it automatically, seeing various numbers and letters in spiky writing scrawled on it. “That is my personal number and contact information, please don’t record it on any Blackwatch equipment.” Gabe nodded as he looked at the sheet, memorizing the information before folding it and sticking it in a pocket.

Moira looked at Gabe, an unfamiliar look on her face. On anyone else, he might have called it regret. “I’ve enjoyed my time here, Gabriel. Even though I started out unwanted and ended much the same, it’s been fascinating working with Blackwatch. My work will live on, even though I am not here.” It would, at that. Ana’s rifle used Moira’s tech, as did a hundred other small things. He had the oddest feeling that the tech wasn’t what she was talking about, though.

“If anything...happens with you, Gabriel, you should contact me. I know that you’ve had things under control for some time, but still. I’ve become invested in your status, and would like to know how the story ends.”

“I’ll do my best.” They shook hands, Gabe holding on for a second longer than necessary. “If you need any help, if anyone gives you a hard time…”

“Always the hero, Gabriel. I’ll be fine. Good luck.”

“You too,” he said quietly, as she turned away and went back to her screens. He opened the door to the hallway, looking back one last time to see Moira’s red head bent over something, her hair the only warm color in the sterile lab. He closed the door and checked his watch, wondering how everything had changed so much in the forty five minutes since he awoke in McCree’s arms.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Gabe met up with Jesse some days later. It was more for comfort than anything, and a tentative test on his part to see how they would do post-Venice. Gabe ended up tied to a chair for an hour with a vibrator in his ass, Jesse absently kicking the speed up and down according to whim as he watched a film on his tablet.

Eventually Gabe came with Jesse sitting in his lap, hands wrapped around his neck and pressing in just enough so his vision tunneled down into blackness before orgasm. He came to with his head resting against Jesse’s chest, warm hands stroking over his bare back. He’d splattered his release all over both of them, coming untouched for the first time since wet dreams as a teenager.

“Sorry for the mess,” he murmured into Jesse’s shirt.

“It’s fine. I’m proud of you, you didn’t even need a hand.” Gabe was glad the position hid the red in his cheeks. Even though his face was hidden he looked down automatically, and found his gaze locked on Jesse’s crotch, and the bulge there.

What Jesse got out of their whole arrangement was something they never talked about. He always wore a shirt and pants, never undressing more until they got into bed for aftercare later on. He was often hard during their scenes, but never addressed it. They’d spoken enough about BDSM for Gabe to know that Jesse wasn’t in it much for the sex, even when it wasn’t with Gabe - he liked taking care of someone, making sure they got what they needed. Gabe had felt more and more over the months that someone should make sure Jesse got what he needed, too. Maybe that someone should be him.

That was a thought for another day, though, and they got cleaned up and crawled into bed. Items from both of them had migrated to the room, so there were smooth, high quality bedsheets from Gabe, a fluffy red comforter from Jesse, random pillows from them both. Nothing matched, but it was a comfortable mishmash of the two of them. Gabe was under Jesse’s arm as they finished watching the movie with heavy eyes, Jesse’s hand drawing nonsense patterns up and down Gabe’s bicep. His fingers twirled up and down the rope marks, making Gabe’s cock think about a round two.

“Moira’s gone, then?” asked Jesse quietly, as the credits from the movie faded into silence.

“Yeah. Left this morning. At least they gave her a few days to get everything together. Still not happy about it.”

“Mmm. You worried about what might happen, with your thing?”

“Not really. Been under control for awhile now.” It had been. Antarctica had been the last incident, and there had really only been two in the better part of a year and a half. When he and Jesse got together now, it was only lip service that it was about Gabe’s issues. Jesse asked for it as much as Gabe did, though they still kept it to only once every few weeks or so.

“Do you…” Jesse trailed off.

“Do I what?” Gabe asked. When there was no answer he moved, pulling back to look at Jesse’s face. He was chewing on a lip, looking at the ceiling with rather more interest than a Blackwatch ceiling deserved.

“This is very much an out there idea, but it’s somethin’ that occurred to me awhile back. Don’t shoot the messenger.” Jesse fell silent again, but now Gabe was watching him carefully. Jesse didn’t get like this unless it was both something he felt strongly about, and something he wasn’t sure how Gabe would react to.

“Your whole thing. It’s been handled mostly by you and me for the past however long, right?”

“Right.”

“And so you weren’t goin’ in to see Moira as much, because there wasn’t a reason to.”

“Yes…?”

“When you were havin’ the problems, when it was happenin’ all the time. You were also seein’ her all the time.”

Quiet, from Gabe this time. “You think it was something she was doing.”

“I don’t know, Gabe. I don’t know what she did, what all you two got up to in the lab. I just know that she was there all the time and you were a wreck, but then it was me and you and there was less to take care of. I mean, we’ve kept going because we’re good at it,” a wicked smile was directed at Gabe, “But it feels more like we don’t need to, it’s just ‘cause we want to.”

Gabe thought. He had grown as a person, with Jesse. More able to identify what was his brain freaking out about things he had no control over versus anxieties that he could deal with, what was his body being tense or injured as opposed to tension held because of nerves. All done through trial and error, pain and pleasure, Jesse and him. Moira...was there at the start, but when he thought about his smoke and SEP and managing it all, it was Jesse that came to mind.

“There are three factors. Moira, you and what we do, and my own emotional regulation. I think the last is what’s really controlled it, but it was because of you that I got there at all. And Moira...I don’t know. She wanted samples of Jack’s DNA and I refused, because I just - just couldn’t. She seemed to stall out after that, and that’s when we started our thing.”

“Maybe she did all that she intended to do.”

“Mmm.” There was more to say about it, more to think about, but they were quiet. Jesse’s hand kept tracing over the marks on Gabe’s arm until they faded into smooth skin.

-x-x-x-x-x-

They didn’t know it then, but Venice was the start of the end. As pictures of what they had done were released to the press and their faces were known, Blackwatch was put on tighter and tighter restrictions. Gabe managed to convince Jack to let them help out on Overwatch missions, but it wasn’t the same. They were tolerated, not welcomed.

Gabe started very quietly running missions under the radar, just one agent here, two there. Unfortunately, it was when he was monitoring McCree in London that it all ran into a crash course with Overwatch. Jack and Ana weren’t happy, and didn’t believe him when he said McCree was on vacation.

“In London. Jesse McCree. Really.” Ana stared at Gabe with eyes that missed nothing.

Gabe shrugged. “You know how much time he has accumulated. I told him to relax.”

“Is this anything like the last time he was on vacation?” she asked flatly.

Gabe’s cheeks colored as Jack looked confused. He’d never given Ana specifics about that long ago mission in the club or what it resulted in, but he’d always sensed that she had figured out far more than she let on.

“Oh look, he’s about to be killed by omnics. Let’s talk about that, now,” he said in quiet desperation. McCree got away safely, though his hat was a loss. Gabe left Ana and Jack to deal with London, calling up McCree on a private line to make sure that he made it to safety all right.

Blackwatch fell apart slowly - some type of rot from within. Gabe couldn’t figure out if it was his own people, Overwatch agents, or something else causing it all. They lost people one by one, eventually even Genji left.

When reports came in that Ana was dead from an enemy sniper in Egypt, no body recovered, Gabe quietly lost it for a few days. Blackwatch was bare bones enough to be abandoned for a bit, and Jack was tied up with the UN and his own grief.

Jesse came to his quarters, and they spent a day or so just holding each other, needing an anchor in the chaos. Gabe’s eyes snapped open on the second morning, five thirty on the dot, and he sat up in bed, leaving Jesse snoring into his pillow. It was time to stop wallowing, time to repair themselves.

He threw himself into his work after that, working with Jack late into the night to try and figure out where their real enemies were. He knew that Jack and Overwatch and the UN were badmouthing Blackwatch to the world, but it didn’t matter now. Ana was dead and they owed it to her to try and survive this. The names might crumble, but the mission would survive.

It wasn’t a total surprise when a request for termination came across his desk. It still hurt to read. His office door was nudged open some time later, and he wasn’t sure what the expression on his face was, but it made McCree wince.

“I wanted to talk to you first, but I guess they pushed it through pretty fast. Didn’t want me hangin’ around.”

Gabe just held his eyes, until McCree looked down. “Are you going to ask me why?”

“No. I understand why. I’d be heading for this hills myself if I wasn’t so caught up in everything.” Gabe sighed, tossing a tablet down on the desk. “This isn’t what I wanted from us. None of this is.”

“That’s...that’s why. I’ve spent so long here, pretty much grew up in these halls, and now it’s just...not there. Everyone’s left except you and Jack, and I’m trapped here, not even allowed to accompany Overwatch anymore. There’s nothin’ left to do but train the new kids, and there are barely even any of those because we’re such a mess.” McCree seemed sadder with the more words that came out of him.

“Now’s your chance.”

“For what?”

“To figure out who you’ll be, without Blackwatch, without Overwatch. What did you dream about being when you grew up, as a kid?”

McCree just stared at him, for a moment. “I - I never got to dream about it, hell, not even about growin’ up. Earliest memories are in Deadlock, and I just figured that I’d always be there. The dream was when you all picked me up, gave me a second chance.”

Something in Gabe’s chest hurt, like a slug into a bulletproof vest. He understood with painful clarity why Jesse had such an urge to take care of others, why he would ignore his own needs for the sake of those under his watch. He turned his attention to his desk so he could blink his eyes and clear his throat.

“Even though you won’t be here, if you ever get in trouble and need help- ”

McCree smiled, something soft and quiet. “I know you’ll always have my back.”

Gabe smiled back, sadly. “When are you leaving?”

“Few days. I’ll let you know in plenty of time.”

Enough time for one last night together.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Gabe had to spend most of a day removing McCree from Blackwatch. He’d been there for so long that he was part of a hundred little subgroups, had a thousand passcodes to this and that. The pay that he would receive in lieu of his backlogged vacation time was enough to make Gabe’s eyebrows raise. Not enough to retire on, but enough to get a decent start. He copied everything that might be of use to McCree onto a memory stick - contact information, medical files, that sort of thing. The medical files were long, oh so long. McCree didn’t have SEP to back up his body but he acted like it, always throwing himself into the fray. The man would lose an arm if it wasn’t fastened to him.

After a long few hours, Gabe was pretty sure that he was all separated. The only thing left was biometrics, which he would leave until after McCree left so he could keep moving around the facility until then. He paused, looking at the screen and where McCree was allowed into. The spare room. He’d nearly forgotten about it, even though they had been there not two weeks ago. If he’d forgotten, he was sure that McCree had as well. He should gather up his things, bring them over.

Gabe found a box and walked to the end of the corridor. No one lived in any of the rooms in this hallway now, the only ones still occupied were his and McCree’s quarters two halls over. He let himself in, turning the brightness all the way up like they never did themselves.

It was a small little room, purposefully chosen because it was forgotten. It looked like it was lived in, though, pillows lying around here and there, the bed half-heartedly made after last time. A few bottles of water and protein bars on shelves, along with the scattering of books that McCree kept to entertain himself while Gabe was otherwise occupied.

Gabe packed things up slowly, feeling like he was packing away their life. It took awhile to go through all the drawers and shelves - he kept finding more and more rope shoved in hidden corners and fallen behind drawers, and finally understood Jesse’s complaining that he never could find any. Straps, restraints, an embarrassingly large number of half-used lube bottles, all got gently put in the box, one by one. Gabe lifted the mattress to find a pair of pink fluffy handcuffs, that he had steadfastly refused to wear. He tossed them in anyways.

He left the smaller pile of his own things on the bed for later retrieval, hitching the box up on a hip as he looked around. End of an era, it was. He turned the lights off and let the door close behind him.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Gabe knocked on the door to Jesse’s quarters. He opened the door, hair looking like he’d been running his hands through it and with a generally frazzled look to him. “I take it back. I’m not leaving. Nothing is worth this.”

Following him in, Gabe set the box on the kitchenette table. Jesse had moved around in his early years during training, but had been in the same quarters for at least ten years now. As he moved up the chain of command he was offered larger quarters, but he insisted that he didn’t need much and he was happy where he was. This resulted, however, in ten years worth of...stuff.

It was mostly in boxes by now, with chickenscratch scrawls on the side to say what was contained within. It was far fewer belongings than most agents would have, including Gabe, but it still added up. Gabe pushed his hoodie sleeves up and started to help sort things, Jesse pausing then giving a smile of thanks.

They moved a few boxes out to the hallway, kitchen things that Jesse didn’t want to take that would be up for grabs for other agents. The rest was clothing, weapons, books, and boxes full of the miscellany you accumulate when you work an international job. A shot glass from Numbani, an ashtray stolen from a bar in Hollywood, a dusty bottle of sake from Japan. Jesse hefted that last one in a hand before wrapping it in a shirt and tucking it in a box.

“Always meant to drink that with Genji, completely forgot it was there.”

“Maybe you’ll find him out there.”

“Maybe.”

The rooms were nearly bare, other than the linens on the bed and a few spare things lying around when they called it quits. They were covered in dust and sweat, so both took quick turns in Jesse’s shower. Gabe put on on a faded Blackwatch shirt of Jesse’s that he pressed into Gabe’s hands, saying he wouldn’t be able to wear it without being arrested anyways. It was a little too tight but it smelled like Jesse still.

They sat on the bed sorting through books, Gabe grabbing a few of his that had migrated over the years, when Jesse spied the box that Gabe had brought in hours ago.

“What’s all this?”

“All your stuff from the spare room. Figured we needed to empty it out anyways.” He sat quietly as Jesse lifted the comforter out, hesitating before he reached in to go through the contents.

“We really did nearly move in there.”

“Yeah.”

Gabe got up to lean against the side of the table and watch as Jesse went through it all. Eventually his hands stilled and he pulled them out, absently rubbing away a smear of lube that had transferred to his wrist. Jesse looked down into the box, the detritus of two years of...something.

“It’s gonna be strange, not having this. Having us.”

They hadn’t talked about it yet. That Jesse wasn’t just leaving behind the organization and their friendship, he was leaving behind _them_.

Gabe had gotten better at asking for things, Jesse always insisting on his using words and specifics. This wasn’t a scene, though, and he didn’t know if he should ask. He did anyways.

He stepped forward, just enough to slide his arms around Jesse’s waist. He looked at Gabe in a bit of bemusement - they didn’t touch like this outside of being satiated in bed during aftercare. And Gabe generally didn’t touch Jesse nearly as much as the other way around. But this would be the last time, and Gabe couldn’t let it go.

“Can we...not a scene. Just us?” Gabe tried, he really did, but still didn’t quite know how to ask for what he wanted deep down.

Jesse nodded, looking far more nervous than he ever did in his dom role. This wasn’t that, this was just - Jesse. A hand gently cupped the side of Gabe’s face, and when he closed his eyes, Jesse leaned in for a kiss.

Their first kiss.

It wasn’t a rule or anything, nothing they had talked about when they went over limits (they had to go over things again once Gabe’s dick got involved). It was all unspoken: Jesse never used anything but his hands, Jesse never got undressed, and they never, ever kissed. That was just what they did. Maybe there would be lips touching Gabe’s back or side, for reassurance or to nip at a mark, but it wasn’t kissing, not really. Not like this.

Gabe had no idea what to expect from any of this, but it was so easy to let Jesse’s lips cradle his, hands tilting Gabe’s head into a better position. He let his lips open, and felt embarrassingly affected at the first touch of tongue. They spent long minutes that way, finally learning each others’ mouths after years of knowing everything else. Gabe discovered that Jesse liked slow, intense kisses, and made the most delicious sounds when his bottom lip was caught between teeth. His mouth was hot and soft, his hands rougher as they move restlessly over Gabe’s body, unsure of where to settle.

Gabe slid his own hands from Jesse’s waist down to play with the hem of his shirt, before tentatively pushing upwards. Jesse paused for a bare moment, before murmuring to keep going into Gabe’s mouth. Gabe let his smile break the kiss a bit, before moving the shirt up, eventually pulling it over his head. He slid from Jesse’s mouth downwards, nipping and sucking at places on his throat that had tempted him over the years, until he reached his chest. Jesse’s breathing was harsh above him, making noises at the touch of teeth that Gabe didn’t think he was aware of. Gabe walked Jesse backwards until the backs of his legs hit the bed, pushing him down with a hand.

“Ow, fuck.” Jesse pulled a book out from under his back, squinting an eye to throw it at the wall and hit the light dimmer. It went from full brightness to something far easier on the eyes.

“Always knew that eye was good for something,” Gabe said as he knelt over Jesse, leaning down to catch his mouth with his own.

“Oh, you know. I’ve practiced a bit over the years,” Jesse said with a chuckle that devolved into a small moan of pleasure as Gabe’s mouth scraped over a nipple. Gabe realized all the noises that he wanted to pull out of Jesse, that he wished he’d been able to hear before now. He ran his hands over Jesse’s chest, locating every injury that he could remember and the scars that resulted. There were so many of them. Pressing his mouth to a starburst of white tissue from an exit wound on his hip, Gabe used his free hand to pull down Jesse’s boxers.

He glanced up to look at Jesse’s face, maybe to ask permission, but all he saw was his head thrown back and throat working. As Gabe slid down, sinking Jesse’s length into his warm mouth, a strangled sound came from above him. Jesse was so wet, and Gabe smoothed that and his saliva down to his base so he could work his hand at the same time as his mouth. Jesse’s hand fumbled its way to its second home in Gabe’s hair, and he felt himself automatically relax at the sensation.

“I’m not gonna last long,” came the rough voice from above. Gabe pulled his head back just enough to meet Jesse’s lust-darkened eyes as he sucked hard on the head, and that was enough to tighten his grip in Gabe’s hair and come with a choking sound. It wasn’t anything special or magical - salt, bitter, a touch of something almost like chlorine. But it was Gabe finally making Jesse feel good, and that was everything.

The hand in his hair pulled, and Gabe found himself being pressed down into the mattress by frantic kisses. He wrapped a leg around Jesse’s thighs, held his head in both hands. “We have time, we have time,” he whispered into Jesse’s mouth. They had all night.

“We don’t, darlin’, that’s the thing. We don’t,” came the broken reply, Jesse cutting himself off with a deep kiss that Gabe thought he might drown in.

Gabe’s shirt disappeared somewhere, and Jesse rolled him onto his stomach to pull his underwear down and off. Gabe had let his head drop down to the pillow, squirming just a bit to get some friction between his cock and the mattress. A gentle tap to a cheek stopped his moving - not hard enough to be scene but still familiar enough to command obedience. Gabe let his legs be pulled apart, not really thinking much about why. He gasped and buried his face in the pillow at the first touch of tongue to his entrance, frantically glad in the back of his mind that he’d just showered.

Jesse took him apart with fingers and tongue, until Gabe was writhing against the bed in need of relief. Jesse flipped him over, looking his fill for long enough that Gabe had to turn his head away, before getting up and rooting through the box and returning with a bottle of lube. Gabe’s body knew Jesse’s hands by this point, opening so easily for one finger after another. This time it was accompanied by filthy kisses and Gabe’s hands stroking Jesse back up to full hardness, thumb rubbing over his slick head.

Sliding into Gabe was like coming home. They just stayed there for a minute, Gabe’s legs wrapped around, Jesse braced on his forearms with his head just above Gabe’s. Gabe reached up a hand to pull him down into a kiss, and neither talked about the wetness on both their cheeks. They started a smooth rhythm, one borne of a thousand sparring matches and a hundred nights being intimate, but nothing like this.

It lasted for a hundred years, or just a few minutes. It was all the same to them. Jesse came with a sigh, Gabe with a quiet moan, but they didn’t move apart for a long time. Gabe fell asleep, cradled in arms that he wouldn’t get to have again after this.

Five thirty. Gabe’s eyes opened. They hadn’t changed positions at all since he’d fallen asleep, as far as he could tell. He moved a little, making an involuntary noise of disgust at the state of his ass. He felt Jesse’s chuckle more than he could hear it.

“All your fault, you know.” He propped his head up, meeting Jesse’s eyes. “You sleep at all?”

“Not really. Think I got a few minutes here and there. Can sleep on the transport.”

“When’s wheels up?”

“Nine.”

“Want help getting the rest of this together.?”

“Nah. Think it’s something I need to do myself. Should get started soon.”

“Mm.”

Neither moved, watching each other in the early morning dark.

“We should have done this long ago.”

“Yeah.” Gabe sighed. “Never seemed the right time. Then we ran out.”

Jesse’s hand raised up, ran through Gabe’s hair. “It’ll end. Or change. Or somethin’. And you’ll come find me.”

“Will I, now.”

“Yep. Feel it in my bones.”

Gabe leaned up for a kiss, closed-mouthed because he knew what he tasted like this early. He peeled himself away from Jesse, from what they had, because he could be the person who did what had to be done. He stretched for a moment before gathering his clothes and slowly putting them on. He had a date with a shower ASAP.

He looked back at the bed, at Jesse still curled around the space his body had occupied. “Let me know before you leave.”

“I will.”

Gabe left the room that smelled like them, and it was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

-x-x-x-x-x-

A few days later, Gabe wandered down to the spare room to pick up the things of his that he’d left there. He had heard rumors that they were going to clean and gut this whole area, and though he felt no particular attachment to the sheets and pillows left there, he didn’t want to explain it, either.

He paused in the entryway, seeing something red and unfamiliar on top of the pile before slowly walking over to it. He had to take a minute to compose himself, face buried in the serape that Jesse had left for him, still smelling of tobacco and gun oil and Jesse. Gabe smiled into it a bit, wondering how long it would take Jesse to find the hoodie that he’d tucked into a box. Not long, probably, given that it was in with the weapons.

They weren’t able to kiss goodbye, when Jesse got on the Orca headed for America. It was okay, though, kissing was a new thing for them. Instead they held each other in a long embrace, Jesse’s arms giving Gabe the tightness, the pressure he had needed so many times. They separated, eventually, Jesse settling his hat on his head and walking onto the ship with a small, sad smile.

After carting the box back to his quarters, Gabe was just easing down into his desk chair when pounding came from his door. He opened it to find some young Overwatch agent whose name he hadn’t bothered remembering, face white with terror. “Commander Reyes, communications are knocked out on base, Strike Commander Morrison is in his office…”

Gabe was running down the corridor before the kid could finish. He pulled his tablet out of his pocket, checking it as he ran. No power, and he knew he just charged it. Must be an EMP of some kind. He found Jack in the hallway outside of his office, heading for the command center.

“What’s happening?” Gabe asked, breathing still somewhere near steady as they ran.

Jack shook his head. “Some kind of attack, we’re having to rely on physical relays and messages because the first thing out was the electronics. I don’t know who this is, but I know they just crippled us in one move.”

They got to the command center, which was an electronically dead piece of junk right now but had a balcony that looked out onto the Overwatch hangar where most of the agents were gathered.

“Agents of Overwatch,” Jack’s ringing voice echoed in the chamber, pulling the attention of a hundred faces up to them. “We have been attacked, by persons unknown.” He paused, eyes drawn to movement below. “Who is in that truck? How is it still moving?”

One of Overwatch’s little pickups that ran items all around base was trundling up, pulling in right near the base of the wall the command center was atop. Jack and Gabe peered down at it.

“Jack, move,” Gabe said in sudden horror as he yanked Jack back from the balcony edge and the truck’s black, beeping cargo.

It was too late.

-x-x-x-x-x-

The news played footage of the explosion. In a hospital in Cairo, a single eye watched the tv over the bed, tears running over a faded tattoo as its owner discovers an empty socket will still try to weep.

The news played footage of the explosion. In a bar in Dorado, wide eyes under a wider brimmed hat watched the small staticky tv, hands fumbling a tablet out then pausing when realizing there was no one left to contact.

The news played footage of the explosion. In a small laboratory, a black-helmeted head poked its way around a door. “You see what happened, Doc? We’re barely going to have to do anything to them.”

A dismissive hand waved him off. There were multiple screens shining onto the pale face, previously installed surveillance showing views of the wreckage that the news stations would kill to have access to. Searching, searching, until a bit of movement that’s just off enough appears.

In the debris of what might have once been an airplane hangar, a cloud of smoke seeped out from underneath a block of concrete with something unspeakable underneath. It clumped up, and if one could call smoke confused, the idea would apply here. After a minute of swirling it seemed to contract slightly, then streaked off screen in a long streamer, soon lost to the chaos.

Mismatched eyes widened then narrowed in a smile of delight.

“It worked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading friends


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